Wildfire Smoke New Wave of Smoke From Canada Fires Blankets Midwest
"Residents in the region were urged to remain indoors, weeks after similarly dangerous air choked the Northeast.
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Chicagoans awoke on Wednesday morning to a second day of smoky air enveloping the city, obscuring the skyline and shrouding Lake Michigan in a whitish haze. The air quality remained unhealthy, and public health officials warned residents to take precautions before venturing outdoors.
In cities throughout the Midwest, smoke from Canadian wildfires continued to disrupt daily life. The Air Quality Index in Detroit spiked to 337, a measure that placed the city’s air in the “hazardous” category; Cleveland reached 272. Established by the Environmental Protection Agency, the index runs from 0 to 500; the higher the number, the greater the level of air pollution.
In Detroit, plans for a community celebration at a new park were postponed because of the poor air quality. Mayor Mike Duggan and a Biden administration official still planned to go ahead with a news conference at the park, but city officials said there would be free masks for attendees and “an abbreviated timeline to limit exposure.”
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Between the dangerous heat baking Texas and the Southeast, and the wildfire smoke filling the skies throughout the Upper Midwest and into the Mid-Atlantic, people across a huge part of the United States have been seeking relief from the outside world in recent days.
The two threats this week aren’t connected directly. But a common factor is adding to their capacity to cause misery.
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Judson Jones
Meteorologist and reporterAlthough the smoke is supposed to improve in Chicago through the day, forecasting the haze can be challenging, especially if it is atypical. “Given just how unusual it is to see such low visibility due to smoke in our area (and hence our limited experience forecasting such), our confidence in how fast conditions improve today is pretty darn low,” a forecaster in Chicago wrote this morning.
Emma Fitzsimmons
Reporting from New York CityMayor Eric Adams of New York City said at a news conference on Wednesday that air quality might worsen over the next day, and he urged New Yorkers to take precautions. “In particular, vulnerable residents may want to adjust your outdoor activities,” he said.
Scott Atkinson
Reporting from Flint, Mich.Sue Hardisty, 69, was babysitting her two granddaughters on Wednesday and struggling with her asthma because of the smoke. “When we started with all this smoke and everything, my throat just tightened right up,” she said. “I feel like I’m wearing a belt that’s too tight around my neck.”
Judson Jones
Meteorologist and reporterTypically, temperatures cool as you go up in the atmosphere, but at night, air near the ground can cool faster and, because it’s colder, cannot rise. So, the warmer air up above acts like a cap or a lid trapping the cool air and any pollutants like wildfire smoke near the surface.
Judson Jones
Meteorologist and reporterIt’s called an inversion, and a mild one trapped yesterday evening’s plume of smoke near the surface in parts of the Midwest, like Detroit, making conditions worse earlier this morning.
Julie Bosman
Reporting from ChicagoAt Montrose Harbor in Chicago, the usual view of the city’s skyline to the south was completely obscured by smoke on Wednesday morning. The photo on top shows the skyline in January, and the photo on the bottom, today.
Judson Jones
Meteorologist and reporterThis morning, wildfire smoke funneling into the Midwest was easy to spot on weather satellite imagery. Look for the browner wispy clouds in the center of the image. The thicker that haze the worse the smoke layer is at that location.
Scott Atkinson
Reporting from Flint, Mich.Kevin and Ashley Peets were walking in downtown Flint, Mich., with their 3-month-old daughter, Isabelle, who was in a baby carrier covered by a cloth. The couple said she was born three months premature and had only come off oxygen two weeks ago. “We’ve been staying locked indoors, trying to not bring her out anywhere,” Kevin said.
While the worst air quality was centered on areas around the Great Lakes, dangerously smoky conditions stretched from Iowa to Pennsylvania and as far south as Tennessee.
Here is a look at air quality indices in areas where conditions are considered unhealthy for sensitive groups.
Lexington, Ky.: 141
Rochester, N.Y.: 136
Salem, W.Va.: 127
Carlisle, Pa.: 114
New Market, Tenn.: 101
Judson Jones
Meteorologist and reporterThe storm system that channeled the smoke from Canada into the upper Midwest is expected to shift to the east on Wednesday, along with the smoke.
Judson Jones
Meteorologist and reporterHowever, the storm system is expected to exit the region rather quickly, so the conditions aren’t expected to linger as long as they did earlier this month in the Northeast.
Here are the air quality indices for several major cities this morning. The index runs from 0 to 500; the higher the number, the greater the level of air pollution. An A.Q.I. of 301 or more is considered hazardous. Find your city here.
| Select Cities | Air Quality | A.Q.I. |
|---|---|---|
| Detroit | Hazardous | 306 |
| Pittsburgh | Very Unhealthy | 244 |
| Chicago | Very Unhealthy | 215 |
| Cincinnati | Unhealthy | 199 |
| Buffalo | Unhealthy | 175 |
| Minneapolis | Unhealthy | 163 |
| Washington, D.C. | Moderate | 77 |
| Philadelphia | Moderate | 77 |
| Charlotte | Moderate | 73 |
| Atlanta | Moderate | 71 |
Source: AirNow · Data is as of 8 a.m. Eastern
In Canada, which does not use the Environmental Protection Agency’s index, the city with the worst air quality on Wednesday morning was Windsor, Ontario, just across the U.S. border from Detroit.
As Canada grapples with one of the worst wildfire seasons in decades, heavy smoke from Quebec was wafting into the American Midwest on Tuesday, a day after NASA said it had crossed the Atlantic Ocean all the way to Europe.
Canada has been struggling to fight an extraordinary outbreak of wildfires across the country that has forced tens of thousands of people from their homes, deepened concerns about global warming and, this month, sent choking smoke billowing down the East Coast of the United States, from New York City, past Washington, and as far west as Minnesota.
With so much toxic wildfire smoke moving across the Canadian border and upending life across the Eastern United States, it raises a troubling question: Will there be more of this in the years ahead, and if so, what can be done about it?
First, let’s take a step back. Global average temperatures have increased because of the unchecked burning of coal, oil and gas for 150 years. That has created the conditions for more frequent and intense heat waves.
A lot is still unknown about the toll wildfire smoke takes on your health. But most adults and children without pre-existing conditions will likely recover quickly from the effects of short-term exposure to the smoke passing over the United States, said Jeffrey Brook, an associate professor of occupational and environmental health at the University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
The smoke that people have encountered this week is one of many exposures to pollution our bodies will take in over time, he said — it’s not likely that we’ll be able to identify a health problem in the future and definitively pin it on a few days of wildfire smoke.
As wildfire smoke from Canada continued to drift across the United States, creating unhealthy air quality, many places across the country were under air quality alerts.
Heeding those alerts is important to staying safe, but monitoring air quality levels can also help you decide when it is safe to go outside. (Air quality levels can shift through the day, depending on the time and how much smoke is in an area.)
Breathing in wildfire smoke can cause a headache right away, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and short-term exposure to particulate matter from wildfires has been linked to an increase in emergency room visits for headaches.
Researchers are not entirely sure why wildfire smoke causes headaches, but one reason may be that it can alter the sensitivity of certain neurons, which in turn can increase the risk of headaches, said Dr. Raj Fadadu, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine who has studied the health effects of wildfire smoke.
Today’s the day to put that mask back on.
As smoke from wildfires in Canada drifts over large parts of the United States, the best thing to do to prevent breathing in pollutants is to stay indoors. For many people, of course, that’s impossible. So if you do have to brave the outdoors, putting on a mask is the next best thing."
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