Active Weather
A modest day with three separate small items rather than one big one.
The National Weather Service active alert feed, read at 1:01 this morning Eastern time, counts two alerts in Illinois, one in Minnesota, and one in Wisconsin. Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio show none.
The Minnesota alert is a wind advisory for the northwest corner of the state, along with northeast North Dakota, running from 10:00 this morning to 7:00 this evening Central time. West winds of 25 to 35 miles an hour with gusts to 50 are expected. Gusts in that range move unsecured objects, can bring down tree limbs, and cause scattered power outages. The practical response is to put away what would blow away and to give high sided vehicles extra room on the highway.
The Wisconsin alert is a beach hazards statement on the Lake Michigan shoreline. Great Lakes beaches produce rip currents the same way ocean beaches do, and late season swimmers are often the ones caught out because the crowds and the lifeguards have gone.
The Storm Prediction Center's outlook for today, issued at 12:46 yesterday afternoon Central time, places a marginal risk of severe thunderstorms from the central Plains into the Upper Midwest, with Minneapolis and Saint Paul inside it. Guidance points to elevated thunderstorms across Minnesota and Wisconsin this morning near the nose of the low level jet, with marginally severe hail and isolated strong gusts the expected hazards. Marginal is the lowest of five categories. It means isolated severe storms rather than an outbreak.
Infrastructure
No large wildfires are burning in the six states on the National Interagency Fire Center's current incident list.
The national wildfire preparedness level is 4 on a five step scale, set September 4 at 7:30 in the morning Mountain time, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Its national fire news page, current September 7, counts 65 large fires with 15,855 firefighters and support staff assigned, and 53,233 fires for 8,303,398 acres so far this year.
Indiana carries a federal disaster declaration, number 4933, issued August 25 for severe storms, straight line winds, tornadoes, and flooding, alongside an earlier emergency declaration for the same event. Households in the named counties can look up the assistance categories and the application deadline under that number.
No other new declarations for the six states appear in the Federal Emergency Management Agency's record since the middle of August.
Public Health
The air quality item is real and it is specific. The St. Louis Clean Air Partnership has issued an air quality alert for the St. Louis metropolitan area from 10:00 this morning to 8:00 tonight Central time, and the alert area includes Madison, St. Clair, and Monroe counties on the Illinois side.
The alert is at the orange level, which means ozone is forecast to reach concentrations that pose a health risk. Ozone is not smoke. It forms on hot sunny afternoons out of traffic and industrial emissions, and it peaks in the afternoon rather than the morning. People with asthma or other lung conditions, older adults, and children feel it first.
What helps: move hard outdoor exercise to the morning, keep rescue inhalers where they can be reached rather than in a bag in the car, and keep windows closed in the afternoon if the house is air conditioned. Ozone breaks down at night, so evening is fine.
No boil water advisories were identified across the region.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Health Alert Network archive could not be read this run, so this brief makes no claim about national health advisories in either direction.
Watch Item
Two things are worth watching this week, and they arrive from opposite directions.
The first is tonight and tomorrow. The Weather Prediction Center's extended discussion, issued at 1:41 yesterday afternoon Eastern time, has a low over eastern Canada dragging a cold front across the Midwest and the Northeast, with showers and thunderstorms from the Great Lakes into the Ohio Valley Wednesday into Thursday. The center calls out the Ohio Valley specifically, where the front meets air holding more moisture than usual, so locally heavy rain is possible in Ohio and Indiana. The front moves quickly, which keeps flash flooding limited.
The second is the season. Early September is when the severe weather focus in this region begins to shift from summer thunderstorms toward the autumn pattern, and it is roughly two months from the first freeze in the northern half of the region. The practical item that belongs in that window is the heating system, because the service call you make in September is answered the same week and the one you make in November is not.
That means a furnace check, a filter, and a battery in the carbon monoxide alarm. If your alarm is more than ten years old, the sensor is past its rated life and the unit needs replacing rather than a new battery. Carbon monoxide alarms belong on every level of the home and outside sleeping areas, and they should be tested monthly. That guidance is from the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
For today, the useful check is simpler. If you are in the Minnesota wind advisory area, the trampoline, the umbrella, and the empty trash bin are the three things that move in a 50 mile an hour gust.
Explore Today
What a marginal risk day actually means for a household, and what to do about lightning.
Generator safety, food safety, and covering the first three days without power.
Skills and systems that make a household less dependent on things arriving on time.