You may have seen another heat wave forecast this week. While the temperatures of the ’90s do indeed elicit the groans of the original PNWers, there’s another reason to roll your finger in the heat.
High pressure systems not only lead to high temperatures, but also move air in a clockwise direction. This can bring smoke from Northern California and carry smoke from the east to Western Western Australia.
Currently, the Washington fires don’t put out that much smoke. Western Western Australia may see some smoke from the Schneider Springs fire northwest of Yakima on Thursday or Friday accompanied by easterly winds. But one of our better-performing models overall, the HRRR, remains smoke at the top level for now. Therefore, we are not expecting much smoke from central/eastern WA crossing into WA this week. Of course, the local effects of these fires will continue to be significant and people who live near fires must take precautions.
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| Featured in this image is the Schneider Springs fire northwest of Yakima and a group of three fires in the Colville Preserve. |
In contrast, fires in Northern California are putting out a whole bunch of smoke. Check out this satellite image from this morning.
smoke is sThe shredder assembles off the coast and can be moved north with a clockwise rotation of the high pressure system sTarting Thursday. It’s going to take a while to make up for that here until we start seeing foggy skies late Thursday or Friday. However, this smoke is still the highest at the moment.
In general, we expect mostly high smoke from Thursday to Saturday with slight impacts on the ground. Strong westerly winds are expected to return by Sunday, which should help clear any smoke.
And last but not least, expect moderate to unhealthy ozone levels for sensitive populations near the western side of the Cascades in Wed-Sat due to the high temperatures generated by the aforementioned high pressure regime.
