Topline
More than 80 million Americans were placed under air quality alerts on Wednesday as a thick plume of smoke from Canadian wildfires continues to mask the Midwest and Great Lakes in an eerie haze, just weeks after wildfire smoke blanketed the Northeast and briefly turned the New York City skyline orange.
Wildfire smoke blankets Chicago.
Key Facts
Air quality alerts are in effect throughout the Great Lakes states and parts of the Midwest, including the entirety of Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as Illinois, Indiana and Ohio—the National Weather Service has also placed Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and parts of North Carolina in an air quality alert.
The NWS warns residents to avoid physical outdoor activities and keep all time outside short, as a plume of gray-yellow smoke lingers over the U.S. from wildfires burning in eastern Canada, weeks after New York City, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. were engulfed in an eerie yellow haze, canceling outdoor school activities and professional sports.
Big Number
276. That’s how high Cleveland’s air quality index reached at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, a level considered “very unhealthy” by the Environmental Protection Agency and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s AirNow—giving Cleveland one of the highest air quality levels in the U.S. The city’s AQI tops Pittsburgh (242), Indianapolis (238), Chicago (209), Springfield, Illinois (203) and Milwaukee (200), where the air quality is also considered “very unhealthy.”
News Peg
Multiple cities throughout the Midwest, Northeast and Appalachian Mountains are also experiencing “unhealthy” air quality on Wednesday, meaning the smoke outside poses health risks for at-risk groups, including children, older adults and people with heart or lung disease, including asthma. Those cities include Cincinnati, with an AQI of 198, as well as Grand Rapids, Michigan (195), Toledo, Ohio (185) and Columbus, Ohio (178).
Further Reading
Chicago Tops World’s Most Polluted Cities As Canadian Wildfire Smoke Drifts Into Midwest (Forbes)
New York Goes Martian: Wildfire Smoke Engulfs City In Eerie Orange Haze (Forbes)
New York City’s Smoke-Filled Air—Caused By Canadian Fires—Explained (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/06/28/more-than-80-million-in-us-under-air-quality-alerts-from-canadian-wildfire-smoke/