Forecasters: Only Relief From Smoke Will Be Heat

Smoke from Canadian wildfires has brought terrible air quality to cities in the US once again, with conditions expected to worsen in New York City on Thursday—and forecasters say a "stuck" weather pattern means that for people in the East and Midwest, the only relief from the smoke for at least the next week will be heat and humidity circulating from the heatwave in the South. "Pick your poison," forecast operations chief Greg Carbin at the NOAA's Weather Prediction Center tells the AP. "The conditions are not going to be very favorable."

• With months left to go in Canada's wildfire season, this year's is already the worst on record, with more than 30,000 square miles burned, 21 times the average over the last decade, the BBC reports. Some 483 wildfires are currently burning in the country, with more than 250 considered to be out of control. Experts blame the unusually hot and dry spring.

• Carbin at the NOAA says the weather pattern moving heat and smoke around the US is "highly unusual" and records don't show anything remotely similar. "We have this carousel of air cruising around the Midwest, and every once in a while is bringing the smoke directly onto whatever city you live in," says University of Chicago atmospheric scientist Liz Moyer, per the AP. "And while the fires are ongoing, you can expect to see these periodic bad air days and the only relief is either when the fires go out or when the weather pattern dies."
• Reuters reports that the problem is becoming global, with smoke crossing the North Atlantic and reaching Europe. While it is too high to significantly affect air quality in Europe, scientists are worried about the vast amounts of carbon being released by the fires.

• An air quality warning has been extended in New York City, though its air was relatively good when compared to other cities in the region Thursday morning, the New York Times reports. The city's Air Quality Index was 83, while other cities were in the "very unhealthy" range over 200, with Chicago at 208 and Pittsburgh at 247. An AQI between 200 and 300 is in the "Code Purple" range. On Wednesday, parts of Illinois and Ohio were in "Code Maroon," with an AQI score over 300, considered hazardous.
• The wildfire smoke and the heat are "different things, but the common factor is climate change," Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, tells the Washington Post. "Heat waves occur naturally, as do fires, but climate change makes the heat waves more intense and the fires more intense."

(More wildfires stories.)