Smoke to the winds and gone

Usually in early August, a big high pressure system settles over us, giving us warm, humid air - the dog days of summer. During those times, smoke from the sauna stove will float straight up and not dissipate until it's gone beyond the tops of the trees. Occasionally, there'll be a light southerly breeze to push the smoke out toward the lake where it settles like a fog.
Not this year. Instead, a large, cold, upper-level low has parked itself over the Northeast, spinning a series of cold fronts at us. Many days, we get strong northwest winds, churning up whitecaps on the blue-gray water. This past weekend, the sauna smoke was stretched out flat like a streamer on a car's antenna.
And then, a couple of days later, the wind backed around to the east-northeast, a cool, raw fetch from the Maritimes. We needed a fire in the stove in the camp. That smoke tumbled down the hill and was gone before it reached the bottom of the steps.
The smoke is visible only as the fires are getting started. The wood doesn't burn completely and a lot of particulate matter heads out the stack. We run the sauna full-tilt, so, within minutes, the fire is very hot and the exhaust becomes clear. Even in the camp's stove, where we're apt to light just a small smudge in the morning, the fire is soon hot enough to clean itself.