Wildfire smoke lingers in State College area. How much longer for unhealthy air?

The smoky haze that has settled over much of the East Coast — including Centre County — isn’t headed out any time soon, according to an Accuweather meteorologist.

Wildfires in Canada are affecting air quality throughout Pennsylvania, with State College listed as having “unhealthy” air quality throughout Wednesday, according to airnow.gov.

“In general the air quality is going to be poor not only today, but tomorrow and Friday as well,” Tom Kines, a senior meteorologist at Accuweather, said Wednesday.

The air quality in the State College area is forecast to improve slightly to “moderate” on Friday, according to airnow.gov.

The organization that maps the U.S. Air Quality Index advised Wednesday that people with heart or lung disease, older adults, children and teens take steps to reduce exposure, including avoiding strenuous outdoor activities, keeping outdoor activities short and consider moving physical activities inside or reschedule them.

“If you have asthma or allergies, the one thing you can do is to wear a mask, especially those N95 masks. That’ll help,” said Kines.

For everyone else, it’s advised to choose less strenuous activities outside (walking instead of running) so you don’t breathe as hard, and to shorten the amount of time you’re active outdoors.

Steve Seman, an assistant professor of meteorology at Penn State, said that the drought conditions in Centre County are the same as those causing the Canadian wildfires. When air comes from the north, it tends to be dry.

“I would expect that as long as we get the air out of the north we might continue to have smoky periods,” he said.

With baseball and softball teams from across the county set to compete Thursday in the state quarterfinals, Kines said that the smoke could cause trouble for the competition.

“I don’t know what their criteria is as far as maybe not playing,” he said. “It’s certainly not gonna be better tomorrow.”

Lynn Salvadia from the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA), said that they have “no guidelines related to air quality” and that the organization was taking guidance from Governor Josh Shapiro’s office on how to handle the conditions.

The State College Spikes canceled their Wednesday game due to air quality concerns, and Special Olympics Pennsylvania will move the Summer Games Opening Ceremonies indoors Thursday evening to Pegula Ice Arena.