Sunny skies, mid-20s...sounds like a perfect summer day, right?
Well, it WILL be a nice day...but the wind will put a slight damper on the situation.


Expect SSE wind 20-30km/h through the day today in the Edmonton area.  It's already up in that range this morning & that won't change much this afternoon.
The good news for anyone who had a bit of trouble with the smoke in the air yesterday (AQHI deteriorated to around 5 Monday PM), is the southerly direction.
Air quality should be a lot better today.

As for the fire situation in the north, the High Level region finally had a bit of rain EARLY this morning & more is on the way tomorrow.
It's NE Alta that'll see the bulk of the rain today in the form of showers and thunderstorms.
GEM model is projecting 50mm+ for area N & NW of Fort McMurray.
NW Alta gets 20-50mm in areas N of High Level tomorrow.

Thunderstorm risk elsewhere:
Foothills thunderstorms are expected to fire up once again this afternoon.
It remains to be seen how far E any of these storms will be able to get.
Most of the storms should be Pulse storms that develop, produce some heavy precip & then rain themselves out.
There IS a risk of some storms forming closer to the Capital Rgn this evening, so we'll monitor that situation.

Tomorrow looks to have a much higher risk for TStorms in the Edmonton area & elsewhere through Ctl & N-Ctl Alta.
GFS model has most of the severe weather indexes maxing out over areas NE & SE of Edmonton, but that will need to be watched tomorrow.

Looking LONG RANGE:

I have a risk of showers or thunderstorms in the forecast for Fri, Sat & Sun.
HOWEVER...it'll not going to be 3 straight days of rain.
The risk of mainly for scattered late-day showers TStorms on Friday.
Saturday is a bit of a question mark.  GEM model has the bulk of the moisture early in the day.
GFS holds the showers off until the afternoon.  Too early to say with any certainty how much rain or WHEN.
There WILL likely be showers at some point Saturday though.
Sunday's risk of showers (at this point) appears to be later in the day.
The upper low that, yesterday, was projected to slip through Fri/Sat is now looking weaker & further West Fri/Sat.
GFS now has it rippling through on Sun/Mon.
So...with that change...I've increased the forecast highs for Fri/Sat from near 20 to near 25.
Sunday's forecast high is still in the mid 20s.
As is always the case - we'll have a better handle on the wknd temps & precip as we get closer.
At this point, I think we can rule out near 30 temperatures though.

Forecast looks like this:
Today - Sunny with afternoon clouds.  Risk of an evening thunderstorm.
High:  25

Wed - Partly cloudy with a 60% chance of showers or TStorms.
High:  29

Thu - Mix of sun & cloud.
High:  26

Fri - Partly cloudy. 30% risk of a late-day shower or TStorm.
High:  25

Sat - Cloudy with sunny breaks.  40% chance of showers.
High:  24

Sun - Mix of sun & cloud.  30% risk of a late-day shower or TStorm.
High:  24