We’ve had a couple of days of smoky skies here in Michigan. Here’s what the latest upper-air forecasts show for smoke as we head into the weekend.
Firstly, this smoke forecasting and all of the terminology is new to a lot of us. Over the years we’ve had an occasional patch of smoke from western wildfires. In the last few years the wildfire smoke has covered our Michigan sky more often, is thicker and is bringing some health concerns.
One term you will hear a lot this summer is PM2.5. It stands for Particulate Matter of the size of 2.5 microns or smaller. 2.5 microns is very small. It’s about nine one-hundred thousandths of an inch. The much easier way to say it is very small smoke and ash particles. You know how you cough when the smoke from a campfire shifts at you? You are inhaling lots of PM2.5 at that point. You are inhaling a lot of small particles in the smoke.
Here’s the forecast of the PM2.5 concentration for noon Thursday and noon Friday. The smoke over Michigan the next few days doesn’t look extremely thick, but the smoke won’t clear either.
At midday Thursday the smoke is expected to be visible over most of Michigan. The central and western U.P. may have nearly a smoke-free sky. Lower Michigan may have a swath of thicker smoke stretching in a swath from Grand Rapids to Saginaw and Flint.
Small smoke particles forecast for noon Thursday, June 5, 2025.NOAA
Friday looks to be a touch less smoky for most of us in Michigan, but still not clear.
Small smoke particles forecast for noon Friday, June 6, 2025NOAA
For the rest of this summer it’s good to get an idea of where the main ribbon of smoke is located in Canada. You can see the red shade in southern Canada. This is where the smoke is thick and blowing from the wildfires in the central prairie of Canada.
As I look at the upper-air flow through the weekend into early next week, another storm system will move southeast out of Canada and over Michigan. It would seem the smoke will thicken back up before Sunday’s showers and thunderstorms.
It does look like an occasionally smoky summer on the way.
