Upside Down Times: Canada Brings Pollution, Rust Belt Cleans Us Out

Smoke in the atmosphere made the sun cast a brassy hue
on Fairfield Swamp, Vermont Friday evening. 

 Back in the day of the dinosaurs - I'm talking 1960s and 1970s - a summer southwest wind would bring in warm air, sure, but also pollution from all those cars, industrial plants, manufacturing and what not further down the East Coast and from the southern Great Lakes and Ohio Valley. 

You know, rust belt cities like Cleveland, Gary, Buffalo, Detroit, Pittsburgh. 

We'd always look forward to those cold fronts from Canada that would sweep in, bringing fresh, pristine air from the Great White North. 

Pollution controls and climate change has turned those "good old days" backwards.

Now, in the summer, what used to be fresh Canadian north winds often bring wildfire smoke and air pollution alerts to us in Vermont. 

And thanks to the Clean Air Act, the air coming from the former Rust Belt and the East Coast is fresher than it used to be.

Today is a classic example of that backward pollution scenario.

A light northerly flow brought smoke and haze from Canada over the past few days. An air quality alert went into effect. 

Now, a south wind ahead of low pressure over the Great Lakes has started to drive the smoke back north, out of our hair.  It's still pretty hazy this morning, as it will take time for some of this smoke and haze to depart.

 But visibility should get a little better this afternoon. The air will be a bit easier to breathe, too. The air won't necessarily become crystal clear, but it is improving.  

The air quality alert that was in effect yesterday and last night has been allowed to expire. 

 With the better air quality comes the risk of showers, though the further east you go today and tomorrow,  the less chance you get.  The storm system in the Great Lakes, as we've advertised for days, is just barely crawling eastward, so it will take time to make it into New England. 

So, the rest of the weekend just has a chance of some showers, but it'll be dry most of the time. In eastern Vermont, it might not rain at all. Or if it does, it won't amount to much.

The rain will arrive in earnest Sunday night and especially Monday, when it could come down fairly hard in spot. The best guess is many of us will see a solid inch of rain. 

We're still looking at the strongest push of cool air since June by Tuesday on renewed north winds. I don't know yet if those north winds from Canada will blow more smoke into the Green Mountain State, or whether the cool push of air will tap into a cleaner source of air from elsewhere in the Great White North.