Vermont Air: A Hazy Shade Of Winter Indeed

Hazy shade of winter indeed. A temperature inversion gave us this
murky view of St. Albans, Vermont Saturday. The bluish
greyish tint to the fog suggests some pollution mixed in. 

Saturday in Vermont, the atmosphere had an interesting look to it.  It wasn't necessarily a healthy look, either.

It was murky and foggy, but the fog had a blue and gray slate colored tint to it. It's as if somebody added a bit of steel blue food coloring to the atmosphere. The atmosphere totally had me humming   that old song, "Hazy Shade of Winter," that old Simon and Garfunkle song released in 1966. You might remember it as the 1980s version by the Bangles.

Anyway, the hazy, foggy air was a sign there has been a bit of air pollution in this weekend's murk.

By this morning, air quality in the Champlain Valley had become unhealthy for sensitive groups, according to data from the Vermont Department of Enviromental Conservation. That means people like the elderly, patients with heart and lung problems, and that type of thing should probably avoid prolonged or heavy exertion outdoors.  

This relatively bad air also covered a large portion of Quebec, including the Montreal metro area as of Sunday morning.

Elsewhere, through most of Vermont, western and southern New England and New York, the air quality was "moderate."  That means it's not necessarily unhealthy, but it's not super great, either. The situation has not gotten bad enough for anyone to issue any air quality alerts.

The wind has been pretty calm over the past few days, which is uncharacteristically of winter, Under these conditions, inversions find it easy to form, and that's what we've had on our hands for the past few days.

A regional air quality map from Sunday morning. Orange shading is
air that's unhealthy for senstive people. Yellow is not hazardous, really,
but there is some pollution in the air. . 

Inversions are when there's a layer of warmer air above the surface, with somewhat chillier air near the ground.  That layer acts as a lid, trapping clouds, moisture and pollution near the surface. We've had this type of weather pattern in Vermont often this winter.  More so than usual.

The inversion began when the air was more clear late last week.  Now, it's dank and cloudy and foggy and hazy.  Occasionally, the sun might poke through, but it will remain hazy.

Most of this stuff in the atmosphere is just harmless moisture trapped under the inversion. But as noted, there's a bit of pollution mixed in, mostly particulates. These are teeny, tiny particles and bits come from the exhaust of cars, trucks, wood and pellet stoves and whatever else people are burning out there.

Under extreme conditions, these wintertime inversions can get very dangerous in terms of pollution, though I want to very strongly emphasize this sort of meh air over Vermont now is not and will NOT become especially dangerous.

But there have been instances, especially in the days before the 1963 federal Clean Air Act when air pollution was far worse.

For instance, in the autumn of 1948, an inversion formed over Donora, Pennsylvania.  Emissions from a huge steel mill in the area causd a choking smog in Donora that killed 19 people and sickened hundreds, if not thousands.

Luckily, there's no threat of that happening.  See, environmental laws DO make a difference!

It looks as if it will remain murky in and around Vermont through Monday, and maybe into Tuesday.  I don't think the relatively limited amount of pollution will get worse, as the air is at least stirring some, and bouts of light precipitation falling through this air gunk can help.

By Wednesday, the wind will pick up a bit, and the air coming into northern New England will have originated from the rather pristine environment around James Bay, Canada. Storminess later in the week will help ensure the air quality remains good, as the winds and precipitation from storms disperses accumulated yuckiness in the air.

Siberian Fires Are Another Climate Change Worry

Forests in Siberia are burning at unprecedented rates this summer,
causing all kinds of ecological havoc. Photo from Tass via Getty Images

Yesterday, I talked about the big meltdown going on across Greenland's ice sheet, which is of course bad news.

Today, more bad news. As you might have heard in some news reports, there are huge, HUGE wildfires going on in Siberia.

Why should we care, you might ask. Hardly anybody lives there, and it's so far away. It's not impacting our lives, is it?

Well, short term it's affecting our lives a little, and long term, is contributing to bigger problems associated with climate change.

So far, according to Vox, 15,000 square miles of Siberia have gone up in flames this year. That's about the size of Maryland.

Smoke from the fires is choking nearby cities, causing health problems for many. The smoke is circling much of the Northern Hemisphere. Here in Vermont, we can all agree that Friday was a gorgeous day: Clear skies, warm sun, low humidity, a perfect beach day. But did you notice the sort of hazy quality to the sky? It wasn't exactly a robin egg blue. More of an ashy color.

Most of that haze was caused by smoke from Siberia.

That haze contains little particles of soot that are raining down everywhere. Right here in Vermont, it's not a big deal, because there's too little of it to be much of a threat to anything.

But some of the soot is coming down on what's left of the Arctic ice this year, on the Greenland ice caps and glaciers throughout places like Canada, the Arctic and Europe.  The soot darkens the ice. Pure white ice deflects sunlight. Darker ice draws in the sun's warmth, leading to faster melting.

The soot will always be there. So, if pure white snow falls on top during the winter, that's a good thing. Unless all that snow melts next summer and the sooty snow is exposed to the sun again. That means faster melting next year, and years to come, too.

The fires are contributing to likely further increases in global temperatures, too. Smithsonianmag.com reports that wildfires across the Arctic belched 50 megatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in June alone. That's about the same as Sweden's total annual carbon emissions.

Some of the fires are burning in Arctic peat bogs. Normally, they are wet and help contain the spread of fires. But early snow melt and hotter summer temperatures have led the peat to start burning as well. Peat contains carbon that's been stored there for decades or centuries. The peat fires are releasing that stored carbon into the atmosphere, as Smithsonian notes. 

It's a viscious loop.  Warming contributes to more Arctic fires. Those Arctic fires warm the atmosphere more, leading to even drier, hotter conditions up there, leading to more fires, more warmth, etc. etc.

As Vox notes, there are wildfires in Siberia every year.  But the fires this year, and in recent years, have been bigger and badder than in the past.

OK, have a cheered you up yet?

Yet Another Smoke Attack In New England As Canada Burns Once Again

A hazy sunset caused by Canadian forest fires, as seen
from St. Albans last summer. Haze and smoke attacks
in Vermon from Canadian fires seem to be on the
uptick in recent uears. 

The brilliant blue skies we enjoyed here in Vermont Sunday and Monday, and on into Tuesday morning faded into a sickly greyish color Tuesday afternoon as smoke from Canadian wildfires billowed high overhead.

The haze is still there this morning, at least to an extent, and could get worse again this afternoon.

Most of the smoke is high overhead, but you might have noticed the horizontal view Tuesday afternoon got a bit hazy, too. That was basically fallout - tiny smoke particles drifting back to Earth. That's how these smoke plumes eventually dissipate.

The trouble is the fires keep burning, so smoke keeps going up, and it perpetuates itself.

These tiny particles in the haze aren't exactly healthy to breathe. There wasn't enough haze and pollution yesterday in Vermont to cause any particular health risks. Today, it's possible that enough smoke could reach the surface to bother people with underlying health risks, so we should keep an eye on that.

You might even smell smoke at times today. Don't worry, it's not your house burning. Or maybe worry, because Canada is burning.

Obviously not all of it.  Extensive fires in Ontario have led to widespread smoke in the Midwest and eastern United States.  Other fires in western Alaska are choking that region in smoke as well.

In this air quality forecast for today from the EPA, the
air won't exactly be clean. Areas in yellow have moderate
amounts of particulates. Though not at super hazardous
levels, people with underlying health issues might
want to avoid overexerting outdoors today.
Especially since it will also be very warm.

Extreme dryness, warm air and severe thunderstorms with lots of dry lightning have sparked most of those large Canadian wildfires.

It does seem these "smoke attacks" here in Vermont and the rest of the United States are getting more frequent.

Which makes sense, since Canadian and western United States wildfires have trended upward in size and intensity in recent years.

 Climate change might well be influencing this. In Canada, warmer weather allows things to dry out earlier in the spring, extending the wildfire season.

Hotter, drier weather than in the past and lots of lightning strikes in the summer are fueling these fires.

For selfish reason, that's a shame. We often get breaks in summer heat and humidity via cold fronts from Canada, which gives us the perfect blue skies like we saw this past Sunday.

But now, Canada seems to give us smoke and haze, too. I want the blue sky back.

The Last Summer Weekend, And Hurricane Jose

A very hazy view from a hill in St. Albans, Vermont Friday.

Up here in Vermont, it's the last weekend of astronomical summer, and in the weather department, it's going to be the last weekend of summer, too.

This is typical August, not September. Sunshine, haze, a fair amount of humidity, and temperatures in the 80s will greet us both today and Sunday. This is quite a switch from the first 10 days or so of September, which was quite a bit cooler than normal.  

If you like summer weather, enjoy it. It's probably the last time you'll see such weather until next year. Having said that, part of next week will be warm, too, but maybe not quite as toasty as this weekend.

I have to say, air quality isn't great. You probably noticed the haze yesterday and that will continue today and Sunday. A large part of it is the wildfires in the western United States and Canada, which produced a large cloud of smoke that has been obscuring the skies over much of North America for the past month.

Another reason why it's kind of polluted out there is because the high pressure system causing our warm weather is also stagnant. Just sitting there. With no good winds to push pollutants away. So our cars and other stuff emit pollutants into the air and it doesn't blow away.

The air will eventually, gradually get better. A fair amount of snow fell on the mountains of Montana and Alberta Friday, which will go a long way to suppressing some of the fires out there. That means less smoke and haze will work it's way eastward toward us.

Also, the stagnant ridge of high pressure will weaken with time during the upcoming week, and the air will get stirred up by Hurricane Jose.

Don't worry. I still don't think Vermont is going to get huge effects from Jose, but coastal New England might. I'll get to that in a second.

The weakening high pressure system and the northern extent of Jose will create an east wind over the North Country next week. That means the air will come from a less polluted source: The atmosphere over the Atlantic Ocean.

HURRICANE JOSE

Of course, as I said, Hurricane Jose is creating the aforementioned east wind, and the storm is definitely going to pose some problems along the East Coast.

It's northeast of the Bahamas, still, and about to head north. It will slowly crawl toward New England over the next few days. It will probably - but not definitely - remain offshore.

It's not the most powerful hurricane ever. Maximum sustained winds are around 80 mph, and Jose could weaken to a tropical storm once it's off the Northeast Coast.

Satellite view of Hurricane Jose spinning northeast
of the Bahamas on Friday. 

However, Jose is getting to be huge in size and is moving slowly. That means that even if the center of Jose stays well offshore, coastal areas from North Carolina on up to the Northeast can expect nasty rip currents, beach erosion, some coastal flooding and other hazards like that.

Tropical storm conditions could easily come up to Cape Cod and the islands by Wednesday, though that is not cast in stone yet.

Many - but not all - computer models have Jose making a right turn away from the coast, but it's unclear if that veer to the east would come before Jose gets to New England. It could come once Jose is in southern New England. Too soon to tell.

At this point here in Vermont, Jose could drop some rain on us around Wednesday especially over the southeastern half of the state. But even that's not sure because we don't know the exact track of the storm.

Fort McMurray Smoke Drifts Over Vermont

Satellite photo from the National Weather Service
office in Burlington, Vermont shows smoke
over the region from Alberta  

People in Vermont and much of the rest of the Northeast might have noticed the sky took on a hazy look last evening, and the blue sky still has a greyish hue to it this morning.

That's smoke from Alberta, mostly from the fire that devastated Fort McMurray last week. The fire is still burning big time and spewing smoke far and wide.

Depending on which way the wind has been blowing, the smoke has gotten as far from Alberta as the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Winds have shifted, and now the smoke is blowing over us.

Air quality isn't wonderful, but it's not bad enough to trigger air pollution alerts.

But the hazy Vermont sky is a reminder that the North American wildfire season is off to a bad start.

And we'll probably have hazy days like this several more times this summer.

Smoke, Haze From Canada Fires Obscuring U.S. Summer

Smoke and haze from Canadian wildfires makes
for an eerie sunset over Lake Champlain
in St. Albans, Vermont Wednesday. 

Wednesday around my home in St. Albans, Vermont should have been one of those absolutely classic Green Mountain summer days.

A cold front had swept down from Canada early in the morning, whisking away stifling humidity that had settled over the state the day before, and that night.

Usually these cold fronts yield what I call "Blue/Green days, something the Vermont Department of Travel and Tourism regularly prays for.

In the fresh, dry Canadian airmass, Blue/Green days feature a brilliant, haze-free blue sky. The lush green of the hills, mountains and hayfields gleams royally in the sun.

The air is refreshing, the view for hikers from the mountaintops lasts forever, and you can almost hear the Trapp family singing "The Hills Are Alive....."

Not Wednesday. The cold front certainly cleared out the humidity. The sun came out, sort of. But the sky was a faint slate blue. The few clouds in the sky looked pinkish brown, not billowy white like usual. If you could see the mountains at all through the haze, they were just grayish blue, faint outlines.

What the hell happened to our glorious summer?

Wildfires.

Specifically, it's been hot and dry in the western half of Canada, much of Alaska and parts of the western United States. What is normally those clean, bright airmasses that occasionally drift down from Canada picked up a lot of this smoke and blew it across the border into New England.

Actually, much of the country is getting these smoke attacks. A big ridge of high pressure is contributing to the western heat and encouraging those fires. Downstream from the ridge, the airflow heads southeast into the United States, bringing the smoke from the fires with it.

A wildfire in Saskatchewan, Canada this month
Photo by Scott Knudsen, Northscope Photography via CBC.  n

Yes, it is a First World Problem on my end, complaining about hazy skies when I want a blue sky.

But the smoke and haze is just not a disappointment. It is pollution after all. Fine particles in the haze and smoke can cause lung trouble.

As the Washington Post noted, the 350 fires burning in Canada, some of them quite large, are sending enough smoke into the United States to occasionally prompt air pollution alerts.

People with pre-existing lung conditions in particular can really be hurt by all this smoke.

It looks like the entire rest of the summer will be smoky, at least occasionally. The number of fires, already huge, are expected to grow.

Enormous fires are burning in Saskatchewan, Canada. They're so huge that 1 percent of Saskatchewan's population has been forced to flee the fires. That's 13,000 people kicked out of their homes because of the fires.

Some experts think the Saskatchewan fires won't be completely extinguished until the snow flies, says the CBC  

This is anecdotal, but it seems to me we are seeing increasingly smoky summers due to Canadian, Alaskan and western fires in recent years.

The increase in these fires is consisten with what climate experts say is resulting from global warming. If that's the case, smoke and haze might end up becoming a permanent part of our once pristine New England summers.

Haze Clears In Vermont, Northeast, For Now; Could Be Back

That spell of very warm, humid weather that ended with Thursday's showers and thunderstorms also brought a lot of haze to the Northeast.

Haze over Lake Champlain
in this view from South
Burlington, Vermont.  

As I start my day now, on Friday in St. Albans, Vermont, the sky is very clear. There's no haze,  and it's bright blue and beautiful.

Clean air from Canada is the reason for the improved atmosphere. Northwest winds are drawing the air into our neck of the woods.

The haze might come back though. As we start heading into Sunday and especially next week, the air flow over us will come more from the west.

As you know, huge wildfires continue to plague the west, especially in California.  Smoke from the fires could make it this far, in the form of haze, just as it did earlier this week.

Any haze we do get won't be just smoke from the fires.  As is often the case during warm spells in the summer, it gets hazy with or without fires out west. We also get pollutants from Midwest industries.

The particles from the pollution, be it industry in Cleveland or forest fires in the Sierra Nevada, cling to water droplets, and we get hazy.

It's hard to say how hazy it will get, or even if the landscape will get particularly blurry. We'll just see how it plays out. Meanwhile, enjoy the wonderful clear air today and Saturday.

New England Haze Partly Due To Western Fires

People living in Vermont and many other places in the Northeast might have noticed Monday the sun seemed a bit dimmed by haze, even though visibility near the surface was good, with the mountains not that badly blocked out by the stuff in the air.

A wildfire burns in Idaho this week.
Photo by Ashley Smith via AP

And the sunset was really, really red last evening. It's hazy again this Tuesday morning.

Part of the reason is because the western United States is basically on fire. Wildfires have become pretty widespread over the western third of the nation.

Much of the airflow with the current weather pattern is from the west, so some of that smoke is blowing overhead.

It's not really enough to be a health problem for us, but the haze could continue to create interesting sunrises and sunsets for a couple more days.

A cold front due Thursday night will shift the winds to a northerly direction, which will bring in some clearer air from Canada this weekend.