MPR News PM Update
 
Good morning,

It's Friday! It'll be sunny today with highs in the mid-70s to mid-80s.
Here's the weekend forecast.

It's September, and we have fall colors on the brain.

COVID-19 put the brakes on a lot of fun stuff the past year and a half. But it can’t stop the beauty of a Minnesota fall. The Department of Natural Resources has launched this year’s fall color finder, and we are here for it.

Yes, colors are mostly in their infancy right now, but that just gives you a little time to get ready.

Jay Cooke State Park reports some early fall color changes already, “mainly in aspens, due to the drought conditions and a few maple leaves are just beginning to change.”

Courtesy of the Minnesota DNR

Check out a few of the DNR's current highlights and suggestions about where to go and what you’ll see:

Old Mill State Park, northwestern Minnesota

Trees, grasses and other signs of fall are noticeable throughout the park. The day use area provides a 360-degree view of the beginnings of fall. Weather has been pleasant for a nice picnic all while enjoying the birds and deer getting late summer feeding in.

Blue Mounds State Park, southwestern Minnesota

Goldenrod and bluestem are turning. Asters are coming into bloom. There are bright yellow patches of a variety of sunflowers. Snakes are venturing out more as they search for a little warmth at night and a winter home.
Check out the Mound Trail along the bison pasture fence.

Jay Cooke State Park, northeastern Minnesota

Besides the aspens starting to change, goldenrod and sunflower species are making a full display, and grasses are beginning to take on the rusty hues of fall.
Water remains low in the St. Louis River due to drought conditions, which makes it easier to see the slated slate rock formations. Birds are beginning to prepare for their migratory journeys.

 
Smoke from the Pagami Creek fire on Sept. 10, 2011. | Courtesy of Greg Seitz 2011
By Dan Kraker

Ten years ago this weekend, the Pagami Creek Fire exploded into the biggest wildfire Minnesota had seen in over a century. What had been burning slowly in the Boundary Waters for weeks became an inferno, sweeping across 16 miles of the wilderness in a single day, overtaking campers and Forest Service rangers caught in its path.

It burned through a part of the Boundary Waters where there hadn't been any wildfires in 150 years. An analysis after the fire found that the Forest Service had extinguished around 50 small fires that had started inside the footprint of Pagami in the past several decades, that, if allowed to burn, would have created a patchwork of younger, more fire-resistant forest that could have prevented the fire from becoming the conflagration it did.

Here, survivors of the fire reflect on the experience.

 
What else we're watching
Biden mandates vaccines: President Joe Biden unveiled a series of steps to combat the newly surging pandemic, including the announcement of a federal rule that all employers with 100 or more workers have to ensure that their employees are either vaccinated for COVID-19 or submit to weekly testing.

COVID in Minnesota: Officials are concerned about an increase in the number of cases among school-age children as the new school year begins. The Minnesota Department of Education will begin collecting information in coming days to see if there is a connection between new cases and school masking policies.

Mask lawsuit: A group called Parents Advocating Safe Schools (PASS) sued Gov. Tim Walz and the state in an attempt to force a new peacetime emergency order and a school mask mandate. The first-of-its-kind case landed in a Minnesota court, and the presiding judge made clear the request made him uneasy.

And finally, not COVID: Minnesota State University, Mankato, English professor Gwen Nell Westerman will be Minnesota’s new poet laureate. She is an author, poet, quilt art maker and the first Native American to be Minnesota’s poet laureate.

– Grace Birnstengel, MPR News
SPONSOR

 
 
 

Preference Center ❘ Unsubscribe

You received this email because you subscribed or it was sent to you by a friend.

This email was sent by: Minnesota Public Radio
480 Cedar Street Saint Paul, MN, 55101