Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 81. Sunrise is 5:16 and sunset is 8:36, for 15 hours, 20 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 40.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.
It’s Juneteenth. On this day in 1865, over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in Galveston, Texas, United States, are officially informed of their freedom:
Despite the surrender of Confederate General-in-Chief Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, the western Confederate Army of the Trans-Mississippi did not formally surrender until June 2. On the morning of June 19, 1865, Union Major General Gordon Granger arrived on the island of Galveston to take command of the more than 2,000 federal troops recently landed in the department of Texas to enforce the emancipation of its enslaved population and oversee Reconstruction, nullifying all laws passed within Texas during the war by Confederate lawmakers. The order informed all Texans that, in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all enslaved people were free:
The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.
Why are Wisconsin’s summer skies hazy these past few summers? Here’s why:
Early snowmelt is a warning sign of intense wildfires to come
Although separated by thousands of miles, Milwaukee’s air quality shares a surprising connection with the snow in western Canada. Scientists are finding that early warning signs of an intense wildfire season — one that can generate fires sending smoke all the way to the Great Lakes region — come not when the Canadian fires are sparked, but during warm winters and long springs, when snow melts early.
Although some people still don’t like hearing it, that’s a function of climate change.
Much of the early snowmelt turns into runoff, and does not adequately soak into soil. That leaves behind dry land that serves as fuel for fires. Even wetlands, which would normally stop the fires or provide water for firefighters, dry out and burn.
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To understand how wildfire smoke is transported from Canada to the Midwest, [air quality meteorologist at Wisconsin DNR Alex] Oser said, it’s helpful to think of the atmosphere as multiple layers surrounding the Earth. Smoke in the surface layer, where we live and breathe, can sometimes travel long distances, but typically stays put or moves slowly.
The most significant movement occurs when smoke enters the high winds of the jet stream at the next level – the stratosphere. “If you have a very hot fire, a very large fire, that smoke can punch through the film between these two layers” said Oser.
Once in the stratosphere, near the height where planes fly, wind can carry Canadian smoke from west to east across the continent and to Europe. Images from NASA satellites this year show a smoky haze across North America.
See Andrew Montequin, Melting snow in Canada exacerbates wildfires that bring smoke to Milwaukee, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, June 19, 2025.
Less ketamine1, more rocket science:
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- A short time-frame drug test now, even if true, doesn’t suddenly undo the effects of years of misuse. ↩︎