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| Atmosphere smoke map over Canada and the United States for midafternoon tomorrow. Map is from firesmoke.ca Click on the map to make it bigger and easier to see. |
Though not quite as bad as 2023, it's bad. (I don't think it can get worse than 2023, but who knows?)
Most of the wildfires so far are in Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan. More than 25,000 people have been evacuated in the three provinces.
The fires continue to spread amid hot (for Canada) and dry conditions, so there's no end in sight.
More than 5,000 people have been evacuated from the interestingly named city of Flin Flon, Manitoba, which is on the Saskatchewan border about 400 miles northwest of Winnipeg. That's the entire community's population.
Flin Flon has been menaced by wildfires for a week now. As of Sunday, no homes in Flin Flon had burned, but an expected change in wind direction this week could change that, CBS reported.
Canadian firefighters are being helped by other firefighters from as far away as Alaska, Oregon and Arizona.
Much of that wildfire smoke has been billowing southward through southern Canada into the United States.
Air quality alerts were in effect Sunday for south central Canada, and in North Dakota, along with parts of South Dakota, Montana and Minnesota.
An air quality alert continues in effect for much of Minnesota today.
The smoke has spread well beyond that, but is mostly aloft in other areas of the United States, Some Canadian wildfire smoke was in the air this morning across a huge area of the Midwest and Southeast, all the way down to Georgia.
VERMONT EFFECTS
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| Traffic makes its way along Interstate 89 near Georgia, Vermont through a smoky atmosphere on June 25, 2023. Smoky skies are expected to return to Vermont this week, but it won't be nearly as bad as it was in the summer of 2023. |
You'll start to notice the hazy skies over Vermont as soon as this evening. The haze over Vermont will look even thicker tomorrow and Wednesday, according to current smoke forecasts.
Once it arrive over Vermont, most of the smoke will be aloft and not near the surface, so air quality down where we breathe might not be perfect, but also not particularly dangerous.
Still, the smoke will have an effect. Forecasts issued Sunday said that by Wednesday parts of Vermont would have their first 90 degree day of the year during this week's dramatic warm up.
But now it looks like the smoke will dim the sun enough to hold temperatures in the 80s. Still very warm, but the smoke will make a bit of a difference.
Smoke can have a widespread cooling effect. There was so much smoke from Canada in 2023 that the entire northern hemisphere that summer was more than 1.5 degrees cooler than it would otherwise have been, New Scientist reports.
There isn't nearly as much smoke now as in 2023, so this year's temperature effects won't be as dramatic.
It's also a psychologically disappointing and disconcerting to stare up at a milky grayish and yellowish and smoky sky instead of the deep blue that signifies a fresh Vermont summer. Especially since we had precious little sunshine in May.
So far at least, there aren't a lot of fires burning in Quebec, and those that might be smoldering up there are small and contained. Quebec is of course much closer to Vermont than Manitoba, so a nearby fire in Quebec fire means more smoke for us in the Green Mountain State.
The relative lack of Quebec fires so far means in the immediate future at least, Vermont shouldn't have those choking clouds of smoke that really messed up air quality at times in the summer of 2023.
But in the next few months, we will probably have an increase in the number of hazy skies over Vermont like we have in recent summers. The wildfire season in the western United States will soon go into high gear, potentially adding to the smoke-clouded skies.
Climate change is increasing the number and ferocity of wildfires, so the now nearly annual summer smoke is just one price we have to pay here in Vermont for a warmer world.
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