Get local news delivered to your inbox!

There are currently hundreds of wildfires burning in the Pacific Northwest. States like California and Oregon are both undergoing severe to extreme drought conditions during the wildfire season.

LEXINGTON — A dirty gray trail of smoke, originating from wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, could be plainly seen in satellite imagery over Nebraska on Tuesday and contributed to the hazy conditions throughout the week.

The National Weather Service – Hastings noted it was not difficult to pick out the smoke in the upper levels streaming in from the northwest. The smoke was rising into the atmosphere from the west coast and then rotating clockwise around an upper level ridge of high pressure center over the southwest United States.

The result was the smoke was blowing over Nebraska from north to south, NWS Hastings said the smoke will remain aloft but contribute to the hazy conditions throughout the day.

There are currently 64 wildfires ongoing in Oregon and have burned 35,070 acres to date. The Double Creek Fire was reported one week ago and was caused by lightning. It’s currently the largest wildfire in the state, having burned 59,510 acres.

“Gov. Kate Brown on Saturday issued a declaration allowing the state fire marshal to take command and send other agency resources to help local firefighters. Crews were focusing Sunday on building containment lines at the fire’s southern edge and along the Imnaha River corridor,” the Associated Press reported.

“In southwest Oregon, officials said on Sunday that firefighters had contained more than a quarter of the perimeter of the 30-square-mile (78-square-kilometer) Rum Creek Fire and expected further progress with cooler weather, allowing commanders to release personnel to work on other fires,” AP stated.

To the south, in California, the McKinney Fire, 27.2 miles southwest of Ashland, Ore., has been ongoing for a month and has consumed 60,138 acres.

One of the larger fires ongoing in the United States is the Moos Fire in Idaho. It has been ongoing for a month and has burned 107,523 acres. According to the U.S. Forest Service it is 44 percent contained.

A driving factor in the wildfires is ongoing drought conditions, northern California and Oregon are under extreme drought conditions.

Locally, the presence of the smoke was easiest to detect at sunrise and sunset, as the sun appeared a perfect circle of red, orange and yellow at times.

This change in hue has to do with the physics of visible light, the dense smoke amplifies the normal red or orange sky due to the wavelengths of different colors on the visible spectrum.

Red light has the longest wavelength, while blue, the shortest.

During a normal day, when the sun is directly above us, there isn’t a lot of atmosphere for visible light particles to pass through. This allows for the much shorter blue light wavelength to turn our sky blue.

This change in hue has to do with the physics of visible light, the dense smoke amplifies the normal red or orange sky due to the wavelengths of different colors on the visible spectrum.

During the morning and evening , when the sun is low on the horizon, the shorter wavelength of blue light is absorbed by air particles, while the longer wavelengths of red and orange pass through and make the sky appear red.

Wildfire smoke adds much more particles to the air, which amplifies the process, causing the sun and sky to appear a dark, red-orange color.

Get local news delivered to your inbox!

LEXINGTON — After 24 years of leading the organization through a period of record growth and development, the Board of Directors of the Lexing…

The man's family went to the camp site Saturday to look for him because they were unable to make contact with him and his mother for at least a week.

LEXINGTON — Two Las Vegas men charged with multiple felonies after a traffic stop at the Darr I-80 interchange have been federally indicted by…

Sergey Nastin told lottery officials that he would use the money to pay bills, or possibly “for something fun like a Jet Ski.”

Doug Koebernick, inspector general of the Nebraska Correctional System, said their investigation will be focused on the death, the events that surrounded it and whether staff followed prison policies. 

ELM CREEK — A vehicle fire on I-80 near Elm Creek spread to the grass and burned around four acres in the south ditch during the late afternoo…

LEXINGTON — Local residents raised several questions about a proposed homeless shelter and transitional assistance location in Lexington durin…

LEXINGTON — For more than 40 years they’ve lived the tennis life. But to Gordon and Barb Hinrichs tennis is more than just a lifetime sport th…

Chief Deputy Ben Houchin said deputies found the meth, worth more than $350,000, amid a consensual search of the the 2018 Tundra along the interstate.

At the jail, corrections officers located 27.5 grams (less than one ounce) of suspected meth in one of the suspect's panties.

There are currently hundreds of wildfires burning in the Pacific Northwest. States like California and Oregon are both undergoing severe to extreme drought conditions during the wildfire season.

This change in hue has to do with the physics of visible light, the dense smoke amplifies the normal red or orange sky due to the wavelengths of different colors on the visible spectrum.