I walked outdoors this morning in north Seattle round 6:45 AM and the smoke odor was very sturdy. The anticipated worst (and final) day of the smoke is right here and it’s nasty.
The Seattle PanoCam this morning at dawn clearly confirmed the shallow smoky miasma over town. Even the tops of a number of the tall buildings are above the worst of it.
The calibrated Purple Air air high quality sensors this morning reveals the plume of horrible floor air high quality exiting from the Skykomish Valley from the Bolt Creek fireplace, which then heads south over Seattle. Purple colours point out really dangerous air high quality. Crimson is simply dangerous. The plume is comparatively slender…head east or west and you will get out of it.
The Puget Sound Clear Air Company has a ceilometer in Marysville that reveals the vertical construction of the smoke plume at that website (which is a bit north of the worst of it). The graphic (proven under) reveals that the worst of it (yellow colours) was down low and moved in final night. Yuk.
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The most recent high-resolution seen satellite tv for pc picture round 7:30 AM actually reveals the smoke from the Bolt Creek fireplace exiting the Skykomish Valley and spreading out over northwestern WA:
So what’s going on and when will it cease?
The Bolt Creek fireplace is actually not spreading however is smoldering within the inside. This has gotten worse through the previous few days as temperatures have risen and relative humidities have plummeted.
Here’s a plot of the relative humdity and moisture content material of small useless fuels on the close by Johnson Ridge RAWS website. Yesterday, relative humidity dropped to round 10% and gas moisture to roughly 6 %.
These are favorable circumstances for fireplace.
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The fireplace-favorable circumstances have been pushed by easterly (from the east) stream that unforunately pushes smoke into western Washington as effectively.
And the clear skies aloft and longer nights enable cooler/smoky air to settle into decrease elevations and never combine vertically. That’s the reason circumstances worse in a single day.
However there may be excellent news forward. Photo voltaic heating right now ought to assist combine the smoke by a bigger quantity of air decreasing floor smoke concentrations.
Tonight, the stress distinction throughout the mountains will reverse, and cooler ocean air will transfer into the west.
Smoke time will probably be over for western Washington. Sadly, that isn’t excellent news for the jap slopes of the Cascades.
For instance, listed below are the near-surface smoke forecasts (from the NOAA HRRR smoke system) for this morning and tomorrow morning. Good for Seattle, dangerous for Leavenworth.
