Sign up for the Morning Brief email newsletter to get weekday updates from The Weather Channel and our meteorologists.
S?moke from wildfires in Canada is blanketing the Northeast U.S., shrouding cities in a murky haze, canceling school recess and prompting warnings about air quality and health.
H?ere's what's happening:
From weather.com meteorologist Chris Dolce: N?umerous locations from New York into the mid-Atlantic, including New York City, Philadelphia and Baltimore, reported air quality categorized as "unhealthy" (red shading below), by airnow.gov this morning. Unhealthy air was also observed in portions of the eastern Great Lakes.
A few areas of the mid-Atlantic region and upstate New York even observed very unhealthy or hazardous air (purple shading below).
Many other spots in the Northeast, mid-Atlantic and eastern Great Lakes had air quality in the "unhealthy for sensitive groups" (orange shading below) category.
Y?ou can track the latest real-time air quality at this link.
From staff w?riter Tim Harris, who lives in the city: "It's crazy looking out. Shadows from the sun were orange like it was the morning/dawn sunrise or sunset, but the sun was high above. Now there are no shadows at all."
Wildfire smoke is linked to a host of medical problems, even in people who are otherwise healthy. That's because it's made up mainly of microscopic particulate matter 30 times smaller than the diameter of a strand of hair that can get deep into the lungs and bloodstream.
Read more here.
New York Mayor Eric Adams said in a briefing this morning: "Air quality conditions are anticipated to temporarily improve later tonight through tomorrow morning, but they are expected to deteriorate further tomorrow afternoon and evening."
A tweet from the school district reads: "Due to air quality concerns, @dcpublicschools has canceled all outdoor activities at our schools today. This includes recess, outdoor Physical Education classes, athletic practices and competitions, and any school-specific events or field trips intended for the outdoors."
V?ideo posted to social media shows an alien-like smoke-tinged bright yellow sky over Keuka Lake, New York. The lake is about 60 miles southwest of Syracuse.
The Weather Company's primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.