Southeast Saskatchewan has seen some cloudy and rainy days for a good portion of the summer, but some upcoming weather could break the rainy streak and make for a decent summer atmosphere. The southeast will see a bit more rain today, with some smoke also lingering in the air following the weekend's air quality warning.
Crawford Luke, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, says we'll start seeing improvements soon.
"From what I'm seeing right now, I think potentially that warning has just ended recently. Air quality got worse over the weekend. It looked like it was still pretty bad earlier this morning, but just in the last couple of hours, it looks like things have really started to improve."
"We were kind of expecting an improving trend this morning. It looks like we could still have some haze and maybe some local smoke over the next couple of days, but it looks like our air quality should be fairly good, maybe moderate risk at most, going in through Tuesday and such."
The situation even looks better up north, as recent rains have also been reaching the areas hit by wildfires.
"We do have a northwest wind that kind of returns today and into tonight, but a lot of these fires to the northwest, they kind of took a bit of a hit over the weekend with all the rain that fell in northern parts of the province. So that seems to be helping the air quality situation now, which is good news."
Besides the smoke, cloud cover will also be leaving the area as we're finally getting some sunny summer weather.
"I think today you're probably going to see some showers and thunderstorms for sure. But it looks like once we get through today, it is looking like it's probably going to remain dry for much of the week. Might see a couple thunderstorm chances creep in later in the week or towards the weekend, but overall it definitely looks like we'll be on the dry side, certainly for the next few days at least anyway.
"Looks like it could be some nice summertime weather finally," said Luke. "With some good air quality and just kind of temperatures where they should be and lots of sunshine."
The southeast didn't make it out of the start of August unscathed, as some recent severe weather saw damage reported in southeast communities.