Air Quality Alert

[Al Kowsky]

Where I live near Rochester, NY we are dealing with the fallout from the Canadian wild fires 😣, & again we're wearing these damn facemasks 😷. When I walk to my mailbox all you can smell is burnt wood, & the sun has an eerie orange glow around it 😟.

                          

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/picture-gallery/news/2023/06/07/stunning-images-rochester-ny-during-air-quality-alert/12054761002/

[Ancient Coin Hunter]

Sorry to hear.

Having been in California the last five years or so (I moved this past year to Washington) we put up with smoke + Covid all late summer and Fall. AQI was awful. It got very tiresome. Good luck with the conditions improving!

[kirispupis]

Funny, I was just near Rochester, NY a week ago, although the weather was fine then. 🙂

I live in WA state now, and smoke from both our fires and Canadians has become a regular occurrence. It can be difficult to breathe at times, although the irony is it provides interesting opportunities for photography...

[Kali]

Happens here in California, all the time. Wouldn't be California if we didn't have orange skies, smoke/ash everywhere, during the fire season.

[Al Kowsky]

18 hours ago, Ancient Coin Hunter said:

Sorry to hear.

Having been in California the last five years or so (I moved this past year to Washington) we put up with smoke + Covid all late summer and Fall. AQI was awful. It got very tiresome. Good luck with the conditions improving!

I lived in Santa Barbara, CA in the early 70s & the fires seemed endless 😬. The ash falling on cars would ruin their paint if it wasn't cleaned off quickly 😖.

[Parthicus]

It was similar here in Baltimore, Maryland yesterday.  The skies were hazy, and there was a distinct smell of wood smoke in the air.  Today is supposed to be better, but still not normal.  Stay safe, everyone.

[Al Kowsky]

18 hours ago, kirispupis said:

Funny, I was just near Rochester, NY a week ago, although the weather was fine then. 🙂

I live in WA state now, and smoke from both our fires and Canadians has become a regular occurrence. It can be difficult to breathe at times, although the irony is it provides interesting opportunities for photography...

Lovely photos. The smell of smoke was so strong many people who aren't news savvy were calling 911 thinking their neighbors houses were on fire 🤣.

[seth77]

It could have been worse. Just count your blessings that you're not neighbors with the russian orcs.

[Ancient Coin Hunter]

I thought I'd share a pic of Dry Lightning we experienced in August of 2021 in the Bay Area. An estimated 10,000 strikes hit the ground and started 47 or so fires, a few of which took months to extinguish.

 

[Severus Alexander]

5 hours ago, Al Kowsky said:

I lived in Santa Barbara, CA in the early 70s & the fires seemed endless 😬. The ash falling on cars would ruin their paint if it wasn't cleaned off quickly 😖.

In case anyone is interested in comparing the extent of California wildfires in the 70’s to now, here’s an interesting map: https://projects.capradio.org/california-fire-history/#6/38.21/-119.709

(See also: https://climate.nasa.gov/explore/ask-nasa-climate/2830/six-trends-to-know-about-fire-season-in-the-western-us/ . Here in BC we’re hoping the oil companies get sued sooner rather than later!)

This sestertius was issued around the time of the great fire of Rome:

[expat]

The skies remind me of a freak event a couple of years ago. We all woke to a strange sky and everything covered in thick layers of yellow/orange dust from a sandstorm in North Africa. We are only about 50km away here in south Spain.

Hope the situation is soon under control for you up there

[Al Kowsky]

4 hours ago, Severus Alexander said:

In case anyone is interested in comparing the extent of California wildfires in the 70’s to now, here’s an interesting map: https://projects.capradio.org/california-fire-history/#6/38.21/-119.709

(See also: https://climate.nasa.gov/explore/ask-nasa-climate/2830/six-trends-to-know-about-fire-season-in-the-western-us/ . Here in BC we’re hoping the oil companies get sued sooner rather than later!)

This sestertius was issued around the time of the great fire of Rome:

I wish people would wake up to the damage we're doing to the environment before it's to late 🤨. I won't live long enough to see the worst of it 🤔. I love that sestertius 😍.

[Al Kowsky]

4 hours ago, expat said:

The skies remind me of a freak event a couple of years ago. We all woke to a strange sky and everything covered in thick layers of yellow/orange dust from a sandstorm in North Africa. We are only about 50km away here in south Spain.

Hope the situation is soon under control for you up there

These horrendous wild fires seem to be a growing international phenomena 😬. The situation here in Churchville has improved dramatically ☺️.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Al Kowsky
added info

[Al Kowsky]

8 hours ago, Ancient Coin Hunter said:

I thought I'd share a pic of Dry Lightning we experienced in August of 2021 in the Bay Area. An estimated 10,000 strikes hit the ground and started 47 or so fires, a few of which took months to extinguish.

 

Thor must have been pissed-off 🤣!

[Ancient Coin Hunter]

1 minute ago, Al Kowsky said:

Thor must have been pissed-off 🤣!

I thought it was Jove at the time. We got up at 3 am and watched the show from our deck overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. It affected an area of several hundred square miles. It was one of those monsoons which makes its way from the Gulf of California to the Southwest but moved north. No rain at all. As Caligula would say, it was the gods laughing.

[Ocatarinetabellatchitchix]

On 6/8/2023 at 11:26 AM, Al Kowsky said:

we are dealing with the fallout from the Canadian wild fires

AL, WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ? NO PROBLEM AT ALL HERE IN MONTREAL…

[ewomack]

We experienced the hazy skies, but no wood burning smell this time. A week or two ago I was in the car ready to drive somewhere and the garage door opened to an almost alien landscape. As a member of the Cloud Appreciation Society and someone who gazes at celestial objects more than occasionally, I look at and notice the sky a lot. I had never seen quite such a haze. My first thought was fog, but the conditions weren't right for fog, then it slowly dawned on me that I was feasting my eyes on a sky full of particulates. By the of the day, I had a scratchy and congested throat. Ah, particulates! I feel a poem coming on... I want to sculpt, I want to create...

[Al Kowsky]

16 hours ago, Ancient Coin Hunter said:

I thought it was Jove at the time. We got up at 3 am and watched the show from our deck overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. It affected an area of several hundred square miles. It was one of those monsoons which makes its way from the Gulf of California to the Southwest but moved north. No rain at all. As Caligula would say, it was the gods laughing.

That's a good point, Jove-Jupiter-Zeus was known for hurling thunderbolts from the sky 😉.

                                           

                                                               Marble sculpture of Jupiter. Photo curtesy of the Louvre, Paris.

 

                                                 

[thenickelguy]

Had a couple days there in Pennsylvania where my eyes were itchy and burning terrible. I have not seen any actual news footage of these fires or firefighting. I did see news on the air we had here. Before the smoke got pretty heavy, I was looking out my bedroom window the night before and thought . . .  that  full moon looks very orange to me.

The moonlight cast a strange reddish glow on the ground. Next day you couldn't see a half mile away.

To top it off, we only got our first rainfall in over a month on Friday. Things were looking pretty apocalyptic. We got a good downfall and a couple more showers. Maybe it dampened the stuff in the air, but it seems to be mostly gone for now.

I have asthma, COPD and a touch of emphysema. I use oxygen. I would smother myself with a mask and I have heard the particles are so small, I doubt a mask would filter them, I just stayed indoors as much as I could until it passed. Maybe masks help people with good lungs but I know they cause me more trouble that doing without. 

Edited June 12, 2023 by thenickelguy