Residents in Central and Eastern WA welcomed the cleaner air today, as the lingering smoke from the past few days has mostly cleared out. The cool air and moist weather is expected to continue in the coming days, with little fire activity expected across the region. Residual smoke along the WA/ID border should continue clearing today and tomorrow. All air quality alerts across the state will expire today, except for Chelan county which was extended until 8 am on Friday. Unfortunately, Chelan county is still seeing moderate fire activity in their area, and fresh smoke is affecting towns like Plain, Leavenworth, Cashmere, Wenatchee, and Quincy.
There seems to be a running trend the past few years, where strong easterly winds contribute to a large smoke event in September, followed by several days of lingering smoke across the entire region. So, how bad was the smoke this summer? Compared to previous years, it seemed like there were less smoky days, but we definitely had some pretty bad days later in the summer. Check out the monitoring data comparison:
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The summer isn't quite over yet, and there will likely be a couple more Moderate and USG days in the mix for parts of Central and Eastern WA, but it looks like we had an average to below average year of wildfire smoke. This makes sense, given that the fire season got off to a late start and our large fires didn't get too bad, compared to previous years. The Chelan County monitoring timeline for 2022 summarizes our smoke season pretty well:
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Enjoy the cooler weather as we transition to autumn!
Why are we still (just past midnight, Thursday morning) seeing so much "yellow" in the Seattle and East Side area then? Is that locally generated pollution?
ReplyDeleteThanks for your question. Yellow (Moderate) air quality has persisted for the last few days in the Seattle area because of low winds and lingering smoke. We expect it to fully clear out once a strong low pressure system moves in on Fri/Sat.
DeleteThanks for that explanation - is the area around Lake Washington a sort of natural pocket that needs a bit more breeze to clear out? Or was this more of a random thing that could have happened anywhere? Asking because areas of similar elevation both north and south of Seattle got to green (good) air quality so much faster.
DeleteGreat question. As I was watching the concentrations fall, it seemed like wind to the north and south of the Seattle area was clearing out those areas faster. There is also a higher background level of pollution in general in the more urban areas compared to more rural areas north and south of the city, which could be what is pushing the Seattle-area just above the Moderate threshold.
DeleteI was looking at windy.com and wondering if the convergence zone is (on average) a bit of a trap for smoke and other pollution.
DeleteI worry this trend of smoke during the summer will only continue to increase as climate change gets worse and worse.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I don't see any substantial precip in the forecast for the rest of the month. Hoping that we don't have any more conditions conducive to fire starts and spread before we get a good rain...
ReplyDeleteToday (Mon, 9/19) at 11am around Greenlake there is a very strong smell of smoke. Turns out, smoke from the Bolt Creek fire is again blowing westward. Is this going to be another week-long smoke event for the Seattle area?
ReplyDeleteYes Bolt Creek and three other fires in the Cascades are producing visible smoke today. It's going to be windy from the east until Wednesday afternoon and there will be some fire growth with fresh plumes to Puget Sound region. Currently this doesn't look like a prolonged smoke event, but varying smoke should be expected in your area for the next couple days.
DeleteHere is the Bolt Creek Inciweb Page https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/8417/
DeleteThank you for the info and the link. Seems like the winds have shifted a bit and the smoke smell is no longer over Greenlake as of 1pm. But now other areas around Puget Sound are at moderate to unhealthy levels.
ReplyDelete