Posted on 07/21/2021 8:32:17 AM PDT by blam
A remarkable situation is evident right now.
Fires over the western U.S. are producing a dense veil of smoke that moved across the continent and then descended over the East Coast.
And there is a great irony in all this: most of the West Coast has excellent air quality while the air is unhealthy over the northeast U.S.
To illustrate this strange situation, here is the latest AIRNOW air quality map showing the air quality based on PM2.5, small particles that can move deep into your lungs. ( I want to acknowledge UW Bothell professor Dan Jaffe, who brought this to my attention)
Green is good air quality while red is unhealthy.
Really bad air quality in parts of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. But air quality is really good along the West Coast!
You can visualize the movement of smoke by an image showing the smoke distribution at 11 AM this morning from the wonderful NOAA HRRR model. Smoke generated over eastern Oregon, northern CA, and eastern WA moved northward around a ridge of high pressure centered over the Rockies and then headed southeastward towards the northeast U.S.
The smoke was quite apparent over the Northeast in the visible satellite imagery mid-day today (see below). The grayish stuff is smoke.
The air reaching the East Coast has an interesting three-dimensional trajectory (the path of air in 3D space). Using the NOAA Hysplit software, I found the origin of the air ending over New Jersey at 11 AM PDT today at 500 meters, 1500 meters, and 2500 meters above the surface ( see below).
Wow..the air reaching near the surface in New Jersey started over Washington State (red line). First, the smoky air rose over the Northwest, gained altitude to catch stronger winds aloft, and then got mixed down to the surface over the East Coast. A Washington import that may not be as popular as wine, apples, or cherries.
Kind of wacky, really….. start a fire here in the Northwest and the folks in the NY Metro area are choking in the smoke.
This kind of transcontinental smoke has happened before, but this event is particularly dramatic in terms of the air quality degradation along the East Coast.
Very hazy today in Minneapolis.
There are now 5 seasons in the Western US....
Winter, Spring, Summer, Smoke, and Fall.
The upper midwest and northeast ought to sue the west coast over their anti-forest management policies.
I turned on the furnace today. Wife was cold. Wife not happy, no one is happy.
“I know! I know! I know!” says little Greta in the front row
“GLOBAL WARMING! We are all gonna die.
Oh, woe is us.”
People in Duluth think the smoke is from fires in Canada
In my humble opinion the root cause is the failure of these tree hugger states to practice prescription burns.
We’ve done it forever here in Fla and even being the lightning capital of the U.S. rarely experience wildfires.
The “why” is because of right-wing extremist terrorist insurrectionists and their Russian allies...
Because they are always at fault for everything...
;-)
So the Western States especially the ones on Pacific Coast are crapping on the rest of the country as a result of their lunatic policies
Because the people fleeing California are drafting clouds of smoke behind them?
Should the new saying be “Leave your politics AND your smoke in California”?
This is not a new phenomena. We smelled enough smoke a few years ago here in New Hampshire that people were going out looking for fires in the woods. And then we learned it was from a wildfire in Canada.
I noticed last night here in New England that the Moon was not its usual white or silvery color, but was instead a beautiful shade of gold.
The cause isn’t beautiful, but the moon is.
Now, I'm no meteorologist or weather expert, but I would guess that it's because of the wind? Just a wild guess.
That’s why God made the wind and the rain.
I would guess because the wind blows east
And in another vein....Wood is a renewable source....Let's do some logging instead of importing it from Canada.
Good air in eastern Washington state; enjoying it and a little schadenfreude!
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