ST. LOUIS — We seem to mention it around this time every year, and even into the fall. Wildfire smoke is in the skies throughout much of the United States.
But there are several questions you may have: Is it unhealthy for me? How does it get here? Where are these wildfires?
A handful of these wildfires have been raging in the Pacific Northwest, Canada, and even California over the last few days.
Look how quickly these wildfires have spread in just a matter of hours!
This has been an ongoing issue in northwest Canada for at least a week, and as you can see above, these fires are generating a LOT of smoke. This tweet above really illustrates just how much smoke is actually being generated by the fires all around the country.
So how does it get here? As this ridge of high pressure settles further south, bringing the heat into Montana, the Dakotas and the western Plains... a stronger center of low pressure has replaced it. You see this in the jet stream, over 25,000 feet above the surface. The counterclockwise movement around this low moves the smoke, and the clockwise motion around the high moves it further south into the central Plains.
As a result of this smoke, our sunrises and sunsets have been very hazy and colorful. It almost seems that the mornings and evenings are a little darker as a result. That's how extremely thick the wildfire smoke is above the surface.
This is even so much a common occurrence now that there are computer models dedicated to identifying smoke in the air. You'll notice how it is much thicker lofted in the air, and it follows the similar pattern I detailed above.
But does all of this wildfire smoke actually impact our air quality? This time, no. But sometimes, yes.
Our air quality is only yellow because of the lack of any movement of air, and usually when we have this hot, humid air, pollutants tend to stick around at the surface. Without much movement of air, we don't see much of a change to this pattern in the summer. BUT, sometimes, there are different patterns in place that allow for the wildfire smoke to reach the surface, and sometimes you may even smell it.
Just like the smoke above the surface model was developed, this one also gives us an idea of near-surface smoke. While it doesn't appear it will be too thick at this time, you may wake up Friday morning and smell a little bit of wildfire smoke. That doesn't look like it will be enough to get our air quality worse than "yellow." Any rain that we get over the next couple of days helps to cleanse the air, anyway.
Have pictures or questions? Add them to the 5 On Your Side Weather Watchers group on Facebook and I'll be happy to answer them.
