If you’ve noticed hazy conditions despite the sun being out, wildfires out west is the cause.
There are numerous wildfires ongoing out west in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Arizona and into Canada.
The fires ramped up about a week ago, and the smoke has now spread east to our area.
The smoke thins out as it comes east, so it’s not as dense as on the West Coast or Northern Plains.
With the wind speeds being slower than in the winter for example it’s taking longer for the smoke to arrive here, and once here it tends to stick around for several days until the pattern changes.
National Weather Service Meteorologist Alex Staarman gives a possible timeline for more smoke.
"Probably by the middle to the end of the week we'll probably have some more smoke around the East Coast,” said Staarman. “Then by early next week I would imagine it would probably be mainly north of us over like Southern Canada and the Great lakes, but again it's still kind of too early to tell exactly how that's going to evolve."
According to Staarman the smoky air from wildfires is not hitting our area as bad as June of last year.
The wildfires last year in Canada near the lower Hudson Bay were closer and the wind patterns pushed the heavy smoke to the East Coast, including Delaware.
Staarman says the proximity of this year’s wildfires will not bring the same smoky conditions of June 2023.
"The fires are mainly over the West Coast and the Mountain West, like I said Washington, Oregon and California. So we're much farther away from the source of the smoke so the smoke disperses quite a bit once it reaches our area, but as far as how the smoke moves around that's really just dependent on weather patterns," said Staarman.
Staarman notes hazy skies are the extent of what we’ll experience, adding near surface smoke over the past couple of days should be clearing out thanks to southerly winds.
