If you noticed a putrid smell, akin to poop, while trying to get some fresh air in the Twin Cities on Thursday, you aren't alone — and you weren't mistaken.

The odor is from manure applied as fertilizer on farm fields across southern Minnesota, carried north to the metro by strong winds, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency said in a social media post. The agency said it received "a lot of questions" Thursday about the manure odor, which has come and gone in recent days.

Elijah Roberts, 28, noticed the strong, "disgusting" smell as he was walking to his gym in Uptown. He said the smells are something he hoped to escape by steering clear of rural parts of Minnesota.

"It smelled like a turkey farm," Roberts said while walking along Hennepin Avenue. "I live in the cities, I don't go north anymore, so I didn't expect to smell that."

Minnesota has had its share of unwanted odors in recent months. Roberts recalled the smoky smell of Canadian wildfires that drifted south into the United States over the summer, at times triggering air quality alerts in the Twin Cities and other parts of the country.

Ann Heathershaw-Gay, an after-school coordinator at Ella Baker elementary school in Minneapolis, said many students started commenting about the smell on Wednesday during recess. Some had to be told, she said, not to use the curse word for feces.

"They were saying it smells like cow," she said. "I did have conversations with a couple kids about appropriate language" because they were using an expletive.

When asked, several other people walking around Minneapolis on Thursday said they didn't notice it.

Despite the smell, the air quality has remained in the green, or "good," category, the pollution control agency said.

Meteorologists are expecting the smell to be gone soon. A cold front is bringing in winds from the northwest to the Twin Cities, said meteorologist Tyler Hasenstein with the National Weather Service.

"Those winds will get rid of that smell pretty quick," he said.