People in the Midwest and Northeast are getting a weather gift for the next few days: cooler air, lower humidity and less wildfire smoke. Daytime highs are expected in the 70s or low 80s, with some places dipping into the 50s overnight.
July in the Midwest and Northeast
July is usually the hottest time of year in much of the Midwest and Northeast, which makes the break stand out. The first three weeks of July were among the hottest on record for parts of the East, Midwest and Northern Plains, after a Fourth of July week heat wave brought New York City its first 100-degree high in 14 years and affected a World Cup match in Philadelphia.
About a week later, an intense heat dome seared the Northern Plains, with triple-digit highs in the Dakotas and Minnesota. That stretch helped drive the current setup: summer's muggy air has been pushed into the South, and dew points in the 40s and 50s are landing in the comfortably dry range instead of the 70s that feel sweat-inducing.
Ontario and northern Minnesota smoke
The same run of heat sparked wildfires in Ontario and northern Minnesota, and the resulting smoke was the most intense since at least 1999 in parts of the Midwest and East. Recent rain, cooler weather and firefighting efforts mean less smoke than last week, but the fires are still burning in northern Minnesota and central Canada.
For now, people in the Midwest and Northeast are being told to open their windows and air out at night and in the morning while the cooler spell lasts. It is a short window, though: temperatures are expected to trend hotter in the Plains and then parts of the Midwest this weekend into next week, and another smoke episode later this summer cannot be ruled out.
