Even as the air quality improves, the Northeast is still not out of the woods.
Residents of the Northeast have endured a long and dangerously smoke-filled week as smoke from Canadian wildfires created apocalyptic images and increased air quality. Even when the smoke has cleared, it could not stay gone for very long.By Adriana Navarro, a member of the AccuWeather crew.The most recent information on the wildfire smoke and how air quality may continue to improve over the next few days is provided by Melissa Constanzer of AccuWeather.
After days of smoke-filled skies, air quality levels in the Northeast were slowly starting to improve at the start of the weekend. However, with the fire season just getting off, the area might not be out of the woods just yet.On Wednesday, a crimson dawn above New York City acted as a portent of things to come for the rest of the week as the wind carried smoke from wildfires in Quebec into the United States. By Wednesday afternoon, the smoke had engulfed the city in an orange haze reminiscent of a dystopian future and was irritating the lungs of everyone venturing outside.
On Wednesday, June 7, 2023, a Southwest jet approaches LaGuardia Airport in New York. Because the smoke from Canadian wildfires was reducing visibility, the Federal Aviation Administration stopped certain flights heading for LaGuardia Airport and slowed down aircraft going for Newark Liberty and Philadelphia. Arrivals at Dulles International Airport outside of Washington were also delayed as a result. David R. Martin/AP Photowo American cities had the worst air quality in the whole planet.
Throughout the week, New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., among other places, saw some of the worst Air Quality Index (AQI) readings. For a brief period, the first two cities held the unwelcome distinction of having the worst air in the whole globe.On Wednesday, the air quality in all three cities hit “dangerous” levels, the highest level ever.
People had to reconsider how to live their lives while shielding themselves from the smoke due to the detrimental effects the toxic air had on several elements of everyday life. In order to avoid students and staff from going outside on Friday, New York City public schools offered remote teaching. On Wednesday night, a number of Broadway performances were also postponed. Included in this were programmes like “Hamilton” and “Camelot.”
‘Unlike anything we’ve seen,’ the smoke in New York
Basil Seggos, commissioner of New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), claims that the record-breaking wildfires’ smoke pollution of the city’s skies has also been unparalleled. Geoff Cornish, AccuWeather’s Assistant Chief Broadcast Meteorologist, spoke with Seggos, who described the volume of smoke in the state as “unlike anything we’ve seen.”Seggos advised Cornish to go back more than 50 years to a time when pollution in the New York City region caused the deaths of roughly 168 individuals in order to discover a comparable incident. There hasn’t been anything comparable to what it [the smoke] has affected from New York state to now all the way down to WashingtonD.C.,
