Wildfire smoke from Canada making its return to northern US
Less than a week after the last round of Canadian wildfire smoke blotted out the skies of the Midwest and Northeast, prompting numerous air quality alerts, more ground-level smoke has returned to the United States. However, this time it has covered a broader scope across the northern states.
Air quality levels in the Northeast and Midwest had improved drastically by Monday following the latest incursion of wildfire smoke, thanks to thunderstorms across the regions that flushed the particles from the air. However, the smoke is forecast to shift out of the Canadian Rockies and Prairies into the neighboring northern Plains and Northwest U.S. into Wednesday, leading to poor air quality and low visibility, AccuWeather forecasters warn.
The smoke is forecast to reach cities like Seattle; Helena, Montana; and Grand Forks, North Dakota.
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The Northeast and Midwest won't escape the week without smoke clouding the sky, either. In the near term, poor air quality has been reported in some major cities such as Washington, D.C., New York City and Detroit, mainly due to lingering smoke from 4th of July fireworks. While this is likely to dissipate throughout the day Wednesday, air quality levels may be unhealthy for some during the morning hours.
Later this week, there is some smoke risk as well as the potential for poor air quality to return as a surface high slides into the Upper Midwest, bringing a northern wind into the region and in the Northeast, AccuWeather Meteorologist Joseph Bauer said.
"The general pattern through at least the middle portion of the month is supportive of having more episodes of smoke enter the Midwest and Northeast from Canada," he said. "As a result, more occurrences of poor air quality and hazy skies can occur in these areas more frequently."
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Smoke billows from the Donnie Creek wildfire burning north of Fort St. John, British Columbia, Canada, Sunday, July 2, 2023. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) |
AccuWeather meteorologists are currently monitoring if the Northeast and Midwest will endure the same level of smoke that they did the previous week. The latest indications are that while some high-level smoke in the form of hazy sunshine may return to the Northeast later this week, widespread low-level smoke from fires in eastern Canada may hold off into this weekend or perhaps later next week.
Over 600 active fires were burning across Canada as of Monday, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC). By Tuesday morning, the total acreage burned this year was over 21 million. For context, the state of South Carolina is approximately 20.5 million acres. The previous record was set in 1995 when wildfires burned more than 17.5 million acres across the nation.
Of the fires active on Tuesday, over 300 were considered to be "out of control." Since the start of the year, there have been 3,313 across Canada, according to the CIFFC, most of which started due to natural causes such as lightning strikes.
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