Yesterday, biking home from the UW my eyes started to burn a bit and my throat was irritated. Many folks on the Burke-Gilman trail were wearing filter masks or had something over their mouth/nose. Surreal.
Here is the latest map of air quality over the region and I attached a legend below. Purple indicates air is unhealthy for everyone. Beijing-level muck. Spokane has been hit very hard (from the fires in Idaho and western Montana), as have some locations in central WA.
Seattle has seen some minor improvement, but the air is still heavily polluted with wood smoke.
That's good. But the winds are weak over western Washington, so the smoke isn't going anywhere fast.
The forecast time-height cross section (from today's WRF model run) at Seattle suggests increasing southwesterly winds later today, which will bring in cleaner marine air. And even some REAL clouds (the darker green colors).
Cooler conditions will dominate through the weekend. The worst is almost over.
Finally, many of you are concerned about Hurricane Irma. Right now the latest US model forecast (GFS) brings a very powerful storm to the Florida coast and then up into Georgia/South Carolina (see forecast for Sunday at 5AM).
Many of the other models are following a similar track, with storm skirting north of Puerto Rico, with an abrupt northward turn over southern Florida. The models suggest the storm will slowly weaken before landfall, but intensity prediction are notoriously unreliable.
After an extended (12-year) hurricane drought for the U.S. coast, this year will bring at least two major storms. Folks in Florida need to prepare for the worst.
from Cliff Mass Weather and Climate Blog http://ift.tt/2wGd9Ws
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