WOAY-TV (Oak Hill, WV): While a cold front is helping to clear the air in time for a beautiful sunset today, a resurgence of Quebec wildfire smoke will sweep south into the region late this week.
Chief Meteorologist Chad Merrill has the 7-Day Forecast and EXCLUSIVE interview with Dr. Simon Lee, a NYC Resident experiencing the smoke firsthand:
The culprit is a spinning low pressure in the Canadian Maritimes. The counterclockwise flow around this low pressure is pushing wildfire smoke plumes south into New England and the Mid-Atlantic.
We saw the visibility drop two miles in northern New Jersey at noon today when a fresh batch of smoke pushed into the NYC area and check out this time lapse of the State of Liberty HarborCam. In just a few minutes, the visibility dropped rapidly amidst the smoke plume. The sun was completely blocked by wildfire smoke at high noon today in downtown NYC. Â
Dr. Simon Lee, research scientist at Columbia University, is in the thick of it and describes the scene as “something seen on Mars.” “Birds have stopped chirping and the sky has turned black. Very few people are outside and it is a scene reminiscent of the pandemic,” he said.
While that batch of smoke will stay to our east, another one will swirl south into southern West Virginia Thursday afternoon. This batch will likely remain stagnant in our air through Friday.
As a result, the air quality will be unhealthy for sensitive groups on Thursday. This means the air will be difficult to breath for young children, older adults and those with respiratory illnesses.
We’ll continue to follow the Canadian smoke plumes and provide updates on the air quality as wind trajectories change with the weather pattern.
In the meantime, our weather pattern will be dry and cool until the weekend when a southerly wind brings increasing temperatures followed by a threat for rain. Chief Meteorologist Chad Merrill has the latest:
