This is what it looks like here in Central Virginia today:
The Canadian smoke is really thick right now. I noticed the smell of it for the first time today, acrid and unpleasant. The sunlight is quite muted and orange, and I can’t see the mountains.
We had a lot of rain last night, and I thought that might wash some of it out, but it doesn’t seem to have had an effect.
My original plan was to mow the lawn today, but I think any sustained exercise outside is probably a bad idea.
This is a useful website: AirNow.gov. It has a map that shows the air quality zones, and the locations of all the wildfires. You can zoom out, and it even includes Canada and Central America.
As of right now my AQI is 216, down a bit from the highest reading I saw, which was 229. I checked out a bunch of locations on the East Coast, and the Charlottesville area had the highest reading of any of them, higher than New York, DC, or Richmond. We drew the short straw this time.
There’s an area up by the Hudson Bay that has the worst quality of all. Fortunately, almost nobody lives up there.
From the Nation Weather Service air quality alert:
Due to Canadian wildfires, smoke is prevalent in the Mid-Atlantic region, including the greater Baltimore and Washington metropolitan areas. Under northerly winds, smoke will continue to be pushed south over our area. Thicker smoke will continue to overspread portions of the area, resulting in poor air quality and visibility potentially less than 1 mile. Some improvement is likely through the day, but the smoke likely will continue to affect the area at times until a front on Friday potentially brings some reprieve to fine particle concentrations.
I’m going to stay in the house with the central air on, and be glad I don’t have to work outside in this.
Amen. You chose wisely in refraining from exertion outdoors today.
My home is in Southern New Jersey, and it’s still pretty fierce around here. I am asthmatic, and particularly sensitive to particulates. I, too, follow airnow.gov; it is a good source of information for those sensitive to atmospheric conditions.
.
Optically reminiscent of my field of vision.
That acrid, unpleasant smell isn’t Canadian forest fire smoke. It’s Trudeau and his cabinet.
Being a captive resident of California, I pur hased an IqAire swiss air filtration device, typically used in hospital settings. It does wonders for smoke and other airborne contaminants.