New York City experienced its worst air quality on record Wednesday afternoon as wildfire smoke poured south from Canada. For at least the next 24 to 48 hours, New York and a number of other major cities in the Northeast, Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic will continue to experience smoke-filled skies.
Air quality alerts are in effect through early Friday in large parts of this region. The smoke is expected to meaningfully subside as winds become more northwesterly into the weekend.
A high-resolution weather forecast model, known as the HRRR, which simulates atmospheric features, suggests that plumes of smoke – very thick in some places at times – will continue to cycle through the Northeast and Ohio Valley into Friday.
Below is a forecast based on that model, noting that it is not perfect and that actual conditions may vary from its projections, especially further out in time.
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Thursday
The day began with extremely poor air qualities – deemed downright “hazardous” by the Environmental Protection Agency – in eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, the Washington D.C. to Baltimore stretch and parts of the Delmarva Peninsula. Code purple begins at a air quality indices of 200; Washington, D.C. was at 274, Baltimore sat at 223, Philadelphia logged a 212, Wilmington, Del. was at 281 and Harrisburg, Pa. had an air quality index of 387, down from an inconceivable 434 at 8 a.m.. New York City triggered a code red at 188.
Visibilities across the affected areas ranged from 1.5 to 3 miles in the thick smoke. High-resolution models suggest that smoke will waft east today, however, diminishing in intensity through the evening hours. The Mid-Atlantic should see improvement during the afternoon. That’s around the time, however, that a new plume of smoke encroaches on New York City, meaning things will likely become bad again Thursday night.
Farther northwest, that new plume was already pushing into western Pennsylvania, northern Ohio, extreme western New York State near Lake Erie and even Michigan. It was emanating from southern Ontario and Quebec; Toronto was suffering very poor air quality early Thursday.
Northern Michigan, parts of Ohio and especially Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic will experience hazardous air quality overnight.
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Friday morning
That second intense cloud of smoke will be steered toward Washington D.C., the Delmarva Peninsula, much of New Jersey and southern Pennsylvania to start the day. The potential exists for smoke pollution rivaling what was experienced Thursday morning. It will linger much of the day in eastern areas, but improvement should arrive from the west as the smoke is pushed offshore.
During the afternoon, however, it may clip Long Island or Cape Cod.
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After Friday morning
The smoke is being cycled through the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic by a counterclockwise-spinning low-pressure system over Nova Scotia.
Beyond early Friday, the low-pressure zone will have drifted south-southwest and weakened over the western Atlantic. This should allow smoke plumes to somewhat disperse as the steering flow from the north subsides. By Saturday, a greater westerly component to the wind should reduce the smoke.
However, as long as the fires burn in Canada, different steering currents in the atmosphere may direct smoke into different parts of the Lower 48 states at times. The fire season in Canada is only beginning, so additional bouts of smoke are probable through the summer months.
(c) 2023, The Washington Post · Matthew Cappucci, Jason Samenow
It will.last as long as they keep setting fires as a cover up for whatever chemicals they are spreading.
The governments and NASA (the ones who told us they flew/fly to the moon, LOL) are trying to convince us that these [deliberate] fires are due to the climate change. Some Jews even believe in the climate change hoax.