Environment Canada is encouraging people to limit their time outside today with an air quality warning in effect for the second day in a row.
"We do have an air quality warning out for the entirety of southern Manitoba, much of central Manitoba, and parts of northern Manitoba," says Brad Vrolijk, a Lead Forecaster with Environment and Climate Change Canada (EC). "It's due to an extensive plume of wildfire smoke that moved into the region over the last couple of days."
The Air Quality Health Index (AQHI) throughout Wednesday is expected to be between 5 and 10, which can significantly impact the health of people who spend a lot of time outside.
"We are probably past the worst of it here in the south. The challenge now is that we have a broad area of high pressure moving through the region, which means we're going to have very light winds."
According to EC and its meteorologists, it's wind that is most effective in removing smoke from the air, rather than precipitation.
"We will see periods of very poor air quality at times through the day today. As we go into the rest of the week, we're going to see southerly winds gradually develop as the high pressure moves off to the east. As that happens, we'll see the air quality generally improve across the south."
Vrolijk shares that the air quality is likely to improve around Friday as we head into the long weekend.