According to the National Interagency Fire Center, more than 1 million acres have been burned by wildfires this year. There are currently 60 major fires burning across the country, with 10 new fires burning in the past few days. As in past summers, widespread smoke from these wildfires is affecting parts of the Plains and Midwest. However, the smoke plume is now just northwest of the Kansas City area.

The thick smoke is most visible on visible satellites over Montana, the Dakotas, and the Front Range of western Nebraska, Kansas, and eastern Colorado. There is also thick smoke from Salt Lake City to Seattle. Note that Kansas City is barely outside the smoke plumes, and that the persistent northerly flow will likely bring hazy skies to parts of the region this week.

The source of this smoke is three zones of wildfires. The first is in central Canada, the second is just east of the Cascades in Washington, Oregon and Idaho, while the third is in the northern Rockies from northern Utah to Wyoming and Montana. Oregon currently has over 20 wildfires, the largest of which is the Falls Fire near Burns, OR.

As a high pressure ridge over the west pushes a northerly flow pattern across the Plains, that will continue to push all the wildfire smoke south. The latest forecasted smoke plumes show an increase in total atmospheric smoke by Tuesday across Kansas and Missouri. Although most of that may be in the middle layers rather than at the surface, which should save us from the terrible air quality we saw last year.

As heat and drought ravage the Pacific Northwest, Kansas and Missouri remain in for a cool July with a small surplus of annual rainfall. Check out the latest forecast from the FOX4 Weather Team.