TheClimateChanger

Syracuse, looks like visibility is actually 1/2 mile: National Weather Service : Observed Weather for past 3 Days : Syracuse, Syracuse Hancock International Airport

Why is dense smoke advisory criteria so much lower in the east than the west? In the western US, they routinely issue dense smoke advisories for 1-3 mile visibility, yet there are none issued even for less than one mile visibilities in the eastern US.

Unfortunately, the next two days look just as bad as today. Tomorrow looks to be the worst, maybe a slight reprieve on Thursday. Of course, that's contingent on additional fires not breaking out between now and then inserting additional smoke. I don't know what the weather is like in Quebec, presumably dry. But there have been bouts of pyrocumulonimbus in recent days, which can be accompanied by dry lightning. Near surface smoke at 5 pm on Wednesday: Near surface smoke at 5 pm on Thursday:

While we've unfortunately grown accustomed to these extreme wildfire smoke events in recent years, in 1950, it was without precedence. 911 dispatchers were flooded with calls. Many ascribed various theories ranging from the end of the world, atomic bombs, flying saucers, toxic clouds from government experiments, to a non-forecast solar eclipse. From the Weather Bureau's Pennsylvania Monthly Weather Review for September 1950:

Interesting. The wildfire smoke last month prompted me to do some research. I wanted to see how unusual it was to have wildfire smoke, and what effects wildfire smoke has on the weather and climate. I came across a peculiar event on September 24, 1950 known as "Black Sunday" or "The Great Smoke Pall of 1950." Here is the article from Hazleton from that event:

I mean, it's not ideal. But when the alternative is a guaranteed blue ocean event and the permanent loss of the Arctic as we know it, what other choice do we have?

Wow, this is an impressive pall of smoke tomorrow - keeps intensifying on the models. Which makes sense the earlier runs saw only the existing fires, and didn't factor in additional fires breaking out in the extreme conditions today. Now showing a widespread area of dense smoke with surface visibilities under a mile, perhaps locally under 1/2 of a mile. Looks like a potentially dangerous situation on portions of the New York State thruway.

I see a lot of media reporting this as "it's too late to save Arctic summer ice." I'm not so sure. I think a targeted system of solar radiation management by spraying aerosols in the atmosphere over the Arctic each summer could buy us sufficient time to draw down GHG levels. But none of our do-nothing politicians want to have that discussion!

Doubtful, likely a net negative. Cools the surface, and warms the upper atmosphere, which reduces instability. The presence of wildfire smoke does brighten and thicken cumulus clouds, producing additional cooling; however, the presence of more, but smaller, droplets means the resulting clouds are actually less conducive to rainfall. There is some research, however, that suggests wildfire smoke and aerosols can lead to more lightning - particularly dangerous positively charged bolts. If anything, the case can be made that the unusually smoky atmosphere contributed to the ongoing regional dry spell. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/wildfire-smoke-is-transforming-clouds-making-rainfall-less-likely#:~:text=It does indeed%2C according to,likely to fall as rain. https://news.mit.edu/1998/smoke-1007

No strawberry picking this year at Soergel’s due to the drought: https://www.wpxi.com/news/local/soergel-orchards-wexford-cancels-strawberry-festival/YA3HKTJRZBHZ5CMAHELYFDX42Q/

Latest run of the HRRR suggests an intense plume of smoke settles in tomorrow to New York and Pennsylvania, both aloft and with a significant near surface component. Surface visibility is forecast to drop to one mile at times. If this is correct, I would expect near record-breaking levels of air pollution.

The latest HRRR suggests a plume of extremely dense smoke is going to settle into New York and Pennsylvania tomorrow. The smoke will be both aloft and at the surface, with forecast surface visibilities of 1-3 miles tomorrow afternoon. I wonder if we will see the issuance of dense smoke advisories due to the visibility restriction?

Looks like a very intense plume of smoke possible from Cleveland to Buffalo Wednesday morning. Total vertically integrated smoke concentrations in excess of 1500 mg per square meter. Some weird quirk in the wind patterns sends all of the smoke from the eastern Quebec fires west tomorrow during peak heating (diurnal peak of fire activity) where it mixes with the smoke from the fires in the west end of the province, and forms a dense pall.

It’s like the earth is fighting back. Enhanced pollution controls briefly allowed the skies to clear. I remember thinking to myself about 10 years ago how cool it was to see blue skies during a summer heat wave. In the 90s and earlier, summer weather was always described as hazy, hot and humid, as if haze was some immutable characteristic of the atmosphere whenever the temperature climbed. Now, the full impact of the sun is being allowed to scorch the anthrogenically heated and dried groundcover and it’s just going up in flames. Air quality is now seemingly worse than ever. It used to be a northwest flow would clear out the haze and bring crisp blue skies - now it brings in filthy, suffocating air. I think May set a new record for aerosol optical depth, so it would seem to me that the new anthropogenic super fires are producing more aerosol than we’ve reduced through pollution controls.

Looks like it, yes. The high and low that day were 68 and 34, respectively. On June 2, 1986, it was 66/47, and on June 3, 1986, it was 72/41. So clearly, relative humidity levels are considerable lower with this current spell.

The dewpoints of 30F at 4 am and 31F at 10 PM appear to have tied the lowest values on record for those hours at Pittsburgh International. Models suggest plenty of dewpoints in the 30s, and possibly 20s later in the week, so we could approach the record lowest dewpoint of 24F set at midnight on June 3, 1986. With the exception of a few hourly records tied last year, all other record low dewpoints were set on June 2-3, 1986, and June 11, 1972. Like this year, both 1986 and 1972 featured developing El Ninos, and both went on to be rather significant events (peak ONI of 2.1 during the 1972-1973 El Nino, and a peak ONI of 1.7 during the 1986-1988 El Nino). This suggests there may be a link between El Nino events and dryness in early June around this region. 1972 did turn much wetter, with the remnants of Hurricane Agnes producing record flooding in Pennsylvania. That appears to be a bit of an outlier though, especially since El Ninos tend to reduce tropical activity in the Atlantic basin due to increased wind shear, so I certainly wouldn't bank on a repeat of that. While the low was 51 at PIT this morning, outlying areas were considerably colder. Some morning lows around the region include 39F at Zelienople, 40F at Youngstown, 41F at Franklin, 41F at Butler, 42F at New Castle, 43F at Latrobe, 44F at Washington, and 45F at Indiana and DuBois.

Looks like June will be another record breaker:

Death band right over head tomorrow afternoon. Where was this setup in the winter?

Look at the state of the air in eastern Ontario. This may rival Black Sunday and the Great Smoke Pall of September 1950.

Does anyone know what’s causing all of the wildfires in Canada? The last few days have been particularly striking across Quebec and eastern Ontario, with dozens of large fires seemingly flaring up out of the blue. I don’t think there was any indication of such intense wildfire activity this summer. Most of Canada was not in drought, but the boreal forests seem to be spontaneously combusting?

Looks like an intense plume of smoke on tap for Ohio tomorrow evening, with total atmospheric columnar concentrations of smoke exceeding 500 mg per square meter. Will get dark very early tomorrow.

Looks like a very thick pall of smoke will be pushing into our area tomorrow evening. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a thick pall of smoke in this area. It’s low too - mostly around 6,000 feet AGL, so it’s not going to be 20k feet plus like the May events.