Smoke A By-Product Of Significant Temperature Shift

Heavy smoke rolled into Casper this morning  causing a flurry of calls to local emergency officials, but there were no local fires.

City and county officials put out a press release earlier today reassuring everyone the problem is not local and reminding folks to only use 9-1-1 in an emergency.

The cold front that moved into the area this morning was the culprit, bringing heavy smoke  from fires burning in Montana.  Kelly Allen, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Riverton says two fires are burning relatively close to the border of Wyoming. The largest is the Sharpey Hills complex at over 54,000 acres and anther smaller fire the Chalky fire was at around 3,000 acres.

"We have this large low pressure trough moving south out of Canada that we've been pretty excited about for days because it was suppose to bring just some cold air and a few rain showers. Its also shifting the winds to the north and they're pretty strong winds at that."

Allen says the front is fairly shallow and drawing the smoke down the I-25 corridor. She says the winds will begin to shift up in Montana later this evening along with some showers forming .

"Winds will continue to be from the north in Casper and those rain showers could be moving south through the evening hours and you'll get a wind shift to the south around midnight."

She says hopefully we'll get our air cleared out by Saturday morning.

YOU CAN GO TO OUR WEBSITE AND SEE A SATELLITE PHOTO OF THE SMOKE ROLLING IN FROM MONTANA.,