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  • Currently in Boston — June 28, 2023: Still humid but not as many showers.

Currently in Boston — June 28, 2023: Still humid but not as many showers.

Plus, 'apocalyptic' wildfire smoke returns to the US Midwest.

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Eric Holthaus & Dave Epstein
June 27, 2023

The weather, currently.

Still humid but not as many showers.

Depending on where you are will determine if you see any rain or not over the next 24 hours. There's a good chance that almost everybody sees at least a quick one but some areas will get a downpour in the early morning hours of Wednesday. This is especially true over Cape Cod. In the afternoon Wednesday inland areas have a higher risk of showers. Temperatures will be in the upper 70s to near 80 with the humidity.

On Thursday the chance of showers decreases it's not zero but most of us will stay dry. And Friday looks even better with partly to mostly sunny skies. Temperatures both days will be in the lower '80s inland cooler at the beaches. Saturday is my pick of the weekend with Sunshine and a low risk of a shower. There's a better chance of unsettled weather for Sunday. Things should calm down a bit as we head into the holiday and heat up as well with readings near 90 by July 4th.

What you can do, currently.

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Our annual summer membership drive is underway — with a goal to double our membership base over the next six weeks which will guarantee this service can continue throughout this year’s hurricane season. We’ll need 739 new members by July 31 to make this goal happen.

If these emails mean something important to you — and more importantly, if the idea of being part of a community that’s building a weather service for the climate emergency means something important to you — please chip in just $5 a month to continue making this service possible.

Thank you!!

What you need to know, currently.

Smoke-filled skies shrouded the cities of the US Midwest on Tuesday, the latest in a chapter of the months-long public health fallout from the worst wildfires in Canada’s modern history.

At the peak of the smoke, Lake Michigan was invisible from downtown Milwaukee — just one-half mile away. Wisconsin has had more public health warnings for poor air quality in the past 10 weeks than in the past 10 years combined. At one point Tuesday morning, Chicago’s air quality ranked worst in the world.

Adam Mahoney of Chicago’s Capital B writes the effects of this particular part of the climate emergency go beyond physical health: “the visually apocalyptic nature of the recent wildfires, coupled with disruptions in day-to-day life, threaten to create mental health struggles”, particularly for Black folks and marginalized people.

Mahoney spoke with Vickie Mays, a professor at UCLA whose work focuses on racial disparities of physical and mental health. Here’s Mays:

In the Black community, we have to recognize that climate makes health disparities. So we can see this and say, wildfires are a big problem for us. So now we got to worry, and are we prepared? Are we going to be ensuring that those people who need a new mask have gotten them? Is it going to make us want to start addressing the climate disparities because it just reminds us of who’s the most vulnerable?

Vickie Mays

And of course, cities like New Delhi, Kathmandu, and Nairobi are plagued with poor air quality and routinely rank among the worst in the world. The chronic health effects from fossil fuel burning is one of the leading causes of death in the world, killing more than 9 million people every year. That deserves to be front page news every day.