Although there are very few wildfires in Washington, Oregon, California, and southern British Columbia, there are significant fires in the Canadian boreal forests of northern British Columbia and Alberta.
And that smoke will push in aloft over Washington State tomorrow and Tuesday.
Below is a map of current Canadian wildfires. The big red dots show current, large active fires.
The problem for the Pacific Northwest is that an upper-level ridge of high pressure will develop offshore, with a trough inland, resulting in strong northern winds providing a fast conduit for smoke from the Canadian northern forest.
The NOAA HRRR-Smoke model provides skillful forecasts of wildfire smoke. Let me show you what it predicts.
Monday morning at 9 AM moderate smoke has entered Washington State aloft
Most smoke from distant sources generally stays aloft, but if the plume is low enough, some smoke can be mixed to the surface during warm days.
Here is a vertical cross-section of smoke for 11 PM Monday. Most remain aloft at that time.
But the strong heating on Tuesday (where temperatures will rise into the mid-80s) will mix some of it down to the surface (see a cross-section at 5 PM Tuesday).
Surface air quality ALWAYS declines on July 4th from all the fireworks. This year the miasma will be "enhanced" by smoke from British Columbia.
The good news is that the upper-level flow will change (more westerly) by Thursday and will sweep the smoke away from our region.
As will discuss in a future blog, the latest forecasts keep our temperatures moderate, winds low, and the potential for wildfires modest.
Addition: Here is the visible satellite image at 6:41 AM Monday, clearly showing the Canadian smoke moving southward into Washington State:
As an old man now, it just seems that these summer bouts of smoke from fires were not happening much here--until maybe 20 years ago. Now, these random fires are tending to ruin our NW summers, no matter what we do.
ReplyDeleteJohn....fire and smoke are natural parts of the ecology around here. You can't shut it down. Shutting it down for 70 years produced sick,dense forests that now burn catastrophically. 120 years ago, summers were smoky around here...cliff
DeleteCliff, thanks for speaking the truth on this. So much misinformation about forest fires but a little bit of research makes it to find the truth. I live in NE Oregon right at the base of the Elkhorn Mountains. The tree/plant density on the mts is way higher than in pics taken around 1900. 120yrs of fire suppression is destroying our forests.
DeleteIt's more complicated. Natives used to do burns all along Oregon, including the Elkhorn Mountains area. So the state of the forests back then was hardly natural. Whether it was worse or better than now is a debatable question.
DeleteCyberax - the natives didn't just burn around the PNW, they regularly burned thousands of acres of forests and brushland across the Midwest, in order to bring in more grasslands. Why? So there would be more land for the Buffalo to breed and multiply. Mankind has been manipulating the natural world since our origins.
DeleteIts true. More smoke the last decade than 40 years ago. But far less smoke than 120-150 years ago. There are many factors associated with the smoke, including mismanaged fires, earlier fire suppression, slow warming, invasive flammable grasses, more people and ignitions, and more.
ReplyDeleteToday should have a pretty respectable diurnal temperature range with a forecast high in the low 80s after a crisp morning low of 49.1F at my location in Bellingham.
ReplyDeleteWhile I can see some smoke aloft and to the north slightly obscuring the mountains of the Coast Range in British Columbia, the air quality at my house is still very good with a current AQI of 4.9.
Cliff, I know you and others have blamed mainly "forest mismanagement" and also other factors for the recent years of large fires and smoke, but I have yet to see objective proof that these are more of a factor than the increasingly warm, dry summers of recent years. I am not saying that "forest mismanagement" has not been a factor, only that you have not shown that it is the main factor. Likewise, I probably cannot prove that warmer, dry weather is the more important factor but there is plenty of evidence that it goes along with increased fire losses. We are certainly seeing this up in Canada this year.
ReplyDeletewxman...have you read the literature on West Coast wildfires? You should start there. I have and I believe that my blog comments reflects the peer-reviewed literature..cliff
DeleteDr. Mass is correct. As an ex-forester my observation is that in the U.S. we essentially quit thinning our forests on federal lands in 1980. As a result, per USFS inventory data we currently have 60% more merchantable sized timber than we had in 1953 with many areas stagnating and exhibiting stagnation, and the insect and disease that make the forest more fire prone. In Forest Protection class my professor made a comment that is indelibly etched in my memory that went something like, " the three most important factors pertaining to the avoidance forest fires are fuel load, fuel load and fuel load in that order". It's true, and that's where we have failed by not practicing rational forest management to control the fuel load and mitigate the insect and disease issues.
DeleteNot seeing this until now, at almost 6PM Monday and Tacoma is now seeing the haze and while not bad, yet.
ReplyDeleteThis haze is often seen more like mid to late summer and into early fall, in which the sun takes on a yellowish to orange-ish glow. Some years it's more, some years, it's less but I've always associate it with late summer/early fall as a result, even back 40 years ago, we saw it, but nothing like we are now.
While the intensity has increased when we do have smoke around here, it's only been in recent years that I've heard about how this was all due to fire suppression and now it's catching up with us. Yes, I was born out at Madigan on Ft Lewis in 1965 and have lived in the area most of my life and do agree, not seen it be this bad until more recent years.
I’m just a hiker who spends inordinate amounts of time in PNW forests and report what I see. I regularly bushwhack through forests which are choked full of dead fall, rotting trees, and thick brush that quickly dries out a few weeks after the snow melts back. Regardless of local weather conditions, this material is extremely flammable and will burn given any ignition source. This will either happen naturally, or unnaturally via uncontrolled or controlled burns, I vote for controlled.
ReplyDeleteI’ll never understand why this is even controversial, meanwhile King 5 aired a ~4-minute segment yesterday r.e. Skykomish and the Bolt Creek fire and not a single mention of forest management but featured a UW Professor who stated that Climate Change is to blame. Is anyone else frustrated that no one wants to talk about solutions? Let's start clearing forests and bringing in local tribes to help with controlled burns and fix our forests before they burn themselves.
Absolutely Jimmy as a hiker myself and living on 17 acres of forest land near Arlington I'm constantly cleaning up dead fall, or at least cutting it onto smaller pieces via brush mower for future food for the trees, I notice some of the most healthier larger second growth trees growing near the large burnt old growth stumps left behind in the early 1900s when this area was logged off then lit on fire. Carbon left behind is the best food source for trees and ferns.
DeleteSmoke has begun to move over the Bellingham area. It remains aloft and its only sensible effect is to reduce irradiance by ~50W/m^2 as compared to this time yesterday. The air quality is still excellent with a current AQI of 1.8 at my location.
ReplyDeleteA lot of the smoke we have had in recent years has come from Canada. I haven't researched it, but I am skeptical they did much fire suppression in all those areas because of how big and remote the Canadian wilderness is.
ReplyDeleteThere was been suppression in Canada, with bad effects. Here is a paper that talks about it"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15961-y
DeleteExcellent analysis, Cliff...Fortunately we do not have an easterly flow with this heat.
ReplyDelete