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.
Here’s the good news. Those areas that are burning won’t burn anymore for quite a while.
This crap is coming back into middle America and my state from the east now.
Thanks a lot west coast Libtards for not maintaining your forest lands.
Same thing year after year as long as libtards are in charge.
The Japanese used knowledge of those winds to fire bomb these very forests during WW2. The Japanese were familiar with the jet streams but, not the Americans.The Discovery Of The Jet Stream
“...in New England that the Moon was not its usual white or silvery color, but was instead a beautiful shade of gold.”
Michigan, too.
West coast idiocy affects us all.
Yup, now if they would only burn the hell out of the rest of it.
Let it burn, all of it.
Dont want to manage it through good logging practices? Then let it burn.
GeoColor is a multispectral product composed of True Color (using a simulated green component) during the daytime, and an Infrared product that uses bands 7 and 13 at night. During the day, the imagery looks approximately as it would appear when viewed with human eyes from space. At night, the blue colors represent liquid water clouds such as fog and stratus, while gray to white indicate higher ice clouds, and the city lights come from a static database that was derived from the VIIRS Day Night Band.
July 21 7:36 am PDT / July 21 14:36 Z 
July 20 6:16 pm PDT / July 21 01:16 Z 
Sounds like the Northeast states need to sue Cali
Little bit of rain, thunder and lightning this morning in Spokane Valley, WA. It blew through Coeur d’Alene, ID a little bit later. Overcast, but nice cool morning — a big respite from the non-stop 90s the past month!
1. The direction of the earth’s rotation.
2. The air currents known as the “jet stream”.
It is no mystery.
It’s been sunny, dry and clear as a bell here in the Big Valley.
Last year it was 1/4 mile visibility and AQI was 300-500.
If we could rotate the earth faster for a day we could send it to China.
Unfortunately the Japanese released the fire bombs during the Winter, when there is rain and snow in the PNW.
The dust from the plains in the “dust bowl” in the 30s reached all the way to NYC with reduced sunlight
I can barely see Pearis Mountain. I’m glad I’m not hiking the Appalachian Trail in that
For most Duluthians, that is a good guess. I've been on several fishing trips to Canada where I've have been in the direct down stream air flow of a forest fire. I couldn't really smell the fire, but the skies were extremely hazy and the eyes watered. The fires were about 500 miles away.
I noticed some haze affecting the moon last night. Turned it red.
The dust from China’s western deserts combines with chemical pollution (mostly coal burning power plants) fouling Beijing’s air constantly. If Beijing was in the west of China and it’s deserts in the east, Beijing’s air would be only partially as bad as it often is. Again - the earth’s rotation determines a lot about airflows in the atmosphere. Its not mysterious.
The Philly metro area is bathed in a hazy heat.
OH i have too, some fire in Alberta or far reaches of northern Ont.
Just as I thought: All this smoke blocking out the heat from the sun is going to cause massive global freezing. We're all going to die! /sarc
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.