The latest smoke forecast shows the thick haze lingering today across much of the region. We expect less haze tomorrow, but it will still have an impact on the areas shaded in tan and yellow on the map below.

The smoke is still coming our way from northwestern Canada. This pattern has repeated several times this summer and is clearly not done.

High temperatures are cooling with the Canadian air. The rain also contributed to highs in the upper 60s in Pierre yesterday, quite a change from Labor Day.

Temperatures will remain cool today on Futurecast, mainly in the 70s. A warm front will develop tomorrow and will start to generate some rain chances across portions of central and southeastern KELOLAND Thursday PM into early Friday AM. We’ll continue to monitor that trend.

The map below has a closer look at the rain forecast this weekend. We expect a couple of disturbances to bring clusters of showers and thunderstorms to the region both Saturday and Sunday. We expect a few pockets of .50″-1″ rain amounts. Look for more on that story later today and tomorrow.

The raw European model is certainly better for rain chances this weekend.

Temperatures will be returning to below normal levels again early next week as the next installment of Canadian air will return to KELOLAND.

Here are the details of the forecast.