Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 90. Sunrise is 5:30 and sunset is 8:30 for 15 hours of daylight. The moon is a waxing crescent with 6.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1994, Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 is destroyed in a head-on collision with Jupiter.
All of Wisconsin is under smoky skies, and northern Wisconsin most of all:
Wildfire smoke from fires blazing in Canada and Minnesota will blanket much of Wisconsin this week, bringing hazardous air quality to northern Wisconsin and statewide effects.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources issued an air quality advisory Tuesday that runs through 11 a.m. Thursday, which could be extended.
[…]
Climate change is driving heat and drought that have set the stage for wildfires to burn. Wildfires in Canada have worsened as the nation has seen warmer and shorter winters that have enhanced drought conditions, said Amanda Latham, climate outreach specialist with the Wisconsin State Climatology Office.
“When we have these really, really dry conditions, and we also start to introduce the warmer conditions during the summer, that really expands the wildfire season,” Latham said. “Oftentimes, it makes it a lot worse than what we’ve seen in historic records.”In Canada, around 835 fires are burning with nearly 3,500 so far this year that have consumed around 4.7 million acres. The number of fires is above the 10-year average.
A Minnesota Star Tribune analysis found wildfire activity has increased in Minnesota almost every season since 1992, including a tenfold increase in the average number of fires during summer and fall.
See Danielle Kaeding, Wisconsin sees hazardous levels of pollution as fires burn in Canada and Minnesota (‘Wisconsin sees unhealthy air as 17 fires burn in northern Minnesota, including 3 in the Boundary Waters’), Wisconsin Public Radio, July 15, 2026.
Our weather has changed because our climate has changed.
_____
Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis and a New Ethics Ordinance.
Gov. Evers will appeal the Trump adminstration’s denial of assistance to four counties hit by April storms. There is a pattern of delay and rejection. Trump delays and rejects disaster aid for Democratic states at higher rates, AP finds: