New York City has some of the worst air quality in the country this week because of smoke that’s drifted south from wildfires in Canada. The city had an orange glow Tuesday morning, with the sun obscured by a smoky haze, reported by CNBC. The New York Department of Environmental Conservation issued an air quality health advisory Tuesday for several counties and surrounding suburbs. Ratings for air quality reached into the 150s on Tuesday, according to AirNow. Those levels are considered unhealthy for all people and significantly above exposure recommendations from the World Health Organization.
The sky over the city had an orange glow on Tuesday morning and the sun was largely obscured. Officials warned residents to limit time outdoors and emphasized that people with respiratory illnesses or heart disease are especially vulnerable to the dangerous air quality conditions. The New York Times reported that smoke brought hazy skies to parts of New York State and also Vermont on Tuesday, and air quality alerts were also issued across large swaths of Minnesota. Hundreds of wildfires burned across Canada, exacerbating an active wildfire season that is expected to worsen, and sending smoke into much of the U.S.
Haze blanketed much of Ottawa and Toronto, while all of New York City was under an air quality alert; by the afternoon, the Manhattan skyline was obscured.
The Oregonian reported that smoke is also causing unhealthy air quality across Oregon, but just two sentences of the report by Gosia Wozniacka were available to non-subscribers. The Seattle Times, however, reported that Canada’s intense wildfires now spread from the western provinces to Quebec, with hundreds of active fires. On Tuesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a poor air quality alert for New England, a day after parts of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota received similar advisories. Last week, U.S. officials as far south as Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania reported being affected by the wildfires.
The EPA said the smoke will linger for a few days in New England.
“It’s not unusual for us to get fire smoke in our area. It’s very typical in terms of northwest Canada,” said Darren Austin, a meteorologist and senior air quality specialist with the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management. But the smoke usually has remained aloft and doesn’t affect people’s health, he said.
The Quebec-area fires are both large and relatively close, about 500 to 600 miles (roughly 800 to 970 kilometers) away from Rhode Island. And they followed wildfires in Nova Scotia, which caused a brief air quality alert on May 30, Austin said.
In Connecticut, smoke from Canadian wildfires lingered overnight on Monday and covered the entire state by Tuesday morning. WTNH-TV News reported that the smoke boosted fine particulate levels starting Monday evening, pushing them into the “unhealthy for sensitive groups” category, according to the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
The Northeast smoke is the result of more than 150 fires in Canada; it has drifted toward Connecticut and stalled in the Northeast U.S. by an upper-level, low-pressure system, according to Connecticut’s DEEP.
Those with asthma or lung disease, and/or the elderly are at risk if they spend a long time outside. Last week, the American Lung Association issued an air quality alert for increased fine particulate matter levels. Check the Fire and Smoke Map at fire.airnow.gov for detailed information about your area, and map.purpleair.com is another excellent source for air quality warnings.
I have to agree with Michael. Why does every single network newscast and publication articles concentrate most of their coverage to New York City as most cities and towns in the northern United States are being affected far worse than in New York. Those who do not live there really don’t give a damn about that city. I am going to assume that since most news outlets are headquartered in New York, they are hoping to convey sympathy, because you know, those New Yorkers sure are a resilient bunch. I believe they are just trying to convince themselves they are important and validate their existence in that shit hole.
Lets also look at recent storms, flooding and tornados in the mid-west and Southern US. They barely get a mention of peoples homes and lives destroyed by these acts of nature, never covering the true humanity, the rebuilding or even promoting donations to those effected areas. Yet every night the outlets spend more time reporting that New York City may get some remnants of a weak-ass weather system. And let’s just mention Hurricane Sandy one more time. Yes, those New Yorkers sure are a resilient bunch.
There are bajillions of network news outlets across the West, Pablo, but I can think of a grand total of TWO reporters at TWO newspapers who were ever any good at all at wildfire reporting. This is one of several reasons we are funding a GABBERT FELLOWSHIP in wildfire news reporting, in which we plan to mentor and intern at least one journalist or student interested in pyrojournalism. We’ve got feelers out, but if you want to recommend someone, just let us know!
(Plus the network news broadcasts have a lot more audience and advertisters than, say, the Missoulian or KPAX news.)
They can’t report on squat if they go broke.
And p.s. news outlets in California, especially southern California, do a MUCH better job with reporting than those in other parts of the country. But don’t get me started. 😜
Michael, your caps lock seems to be stuck.
Everybody getting a good taste of what happens in the western states each year.
I LIKE HOW YOUR REPORTS SKIP OVER MICHIGAN, WHEN MICHIGAN IS JUST RIGHT NEXTDOOR TOO CANADA AS WELL, THE SMOKE HAS BEEN TERRIBLE HERE, MOSTLY TOWARDS THE EVENING. M, CLEAN AIR CANADA.
https://www.clickondetroit.com/weather/2023/06/07/wildfire-smoke-triggers-air-quality-alert-in-metro-detroit-what-it-means/
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2023/06/07/detroit-air-quality-hazy-skies-canada-wildfires/70297183007/
ALL OF SOUTH EASTERN MICHIGAN IS GETTING HIT BY SMOKE AS WELL