Air quality in the North Country has been excellent the past several days with the crisp, cool mornings providing welcomed breaths of fresh air when compared to last week’s smoky, and at times, dangerous-to-our-health haze caused by Canadian wildfires.
But a new forecast map from AccuWeather predicts that Canadian wildfire smoke will be traveling on prevailing winds from western Ontario into the Midwest and Northeast well into August, and that needed rain to put out the fires may be scarce.
“Some sporadic rain is in the forecast for western Ontario, which is the prime source of wildfire smoke entering the U.S. in recent weeks,” AccuWeather senior meteorologist Reneé Duff said in a news release. “The next chance for any meaningful rain (in western Ontario) will be this weekend, with some light rain possible late this week that will probably not be much help.”
More than 900 active wildfires in Canada are sending dense plumes of smoke into the U.S., where wildfires are also an issue. The U.S. Idaho-based National Interagency Fire Center reports that firefighters are working to suppress and contain 72 large fires across the country, including four new large incidents since Tuesday. So far this year, 41,236 fires have burned nearly 3.9 million acres across the United States, with the Northwest geographic a rea the busiest region.
At this time last year, the NIFC reported 39,038 fires in the U.S. with just under 3 million acres burned.