7:00 PM: No wood smoke yet. 28 degrees.
9:00 PM: No smoke.
10:30 PM: No smoke.
11:10 PM: A very faint trace of wood smoke is in the air. It is strong enough to notice but not strong enough to be a nuisance. Last check of the evening.
The colder it gets, the less wood smoke there is fouling our air here in the city of North St. Paul, MN. Most people would assume that winter is smokier than summer. Not around here. Spring, summer, and fall are far smokier than winter. That is because of the city's recreational burning ordinance that allows recreational bonfire burning all seven days of the week. With hundreds of homes around us, somebody somewhere is going to burn on any given evening. Despite what people say, fireplace use is recreational and not for home heating in most cases. There is more fireplace use when the temperature is in the 40s and 50s than when it drops into the 20s and below.