Tens of millions of Americans are under air quality alerts Wednesday as a smoky haze from the ongoing Canadian wildfires envelops the skies of large portions of the Midwest and some areas of the East Coast, according to CNN.
The National Weather Service (NWS) has issued air quality alerts for all or parts of Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky and Washington, D.C., as smoke from the ongoing Canadian wildfires hangs over large portions of the U.S. Air quality alerts issued Wednesday cover at least 80 million Americans, according to CNN.
The air quality alerts are back in effect over large swaths of the country, weeks after the NWS issued air quality alerts earlier in June which included at least 115 million people in their scope. This summer’s fires have already burned at least 19 million acres of land across Canada as of Tuesday, according to CNN.
Though the smoky haze’s density varies across these states, the NWS has said that it will linger and cause poor air quality across American skies until Thursday at the earliest, according to a tweet from the La Crosse, Wisconsin, office of the NWS.
Where is the smoke today? Much of the area remains in the unhealthy or very unhealthy category. Improvement will occur Thurs once weather system moves through. It does look like parts of Ontario/Quebec will see soaking rains over the next week For updates: https://t.co/GTpx091AmH pic.twitter.com/LxXXfk4bfX
— NWS La Crosse (@NWSLaCrosse) June 28, 2023
Of the eight cities with the most polluted air in the world Wednesday afternoon, four are U.S. cities: Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit and Washington, D.C., according to IQAir. Chicago had the worst air quality of any city in the world at times Tuesday, and Detroit leapfrogged it for the top spot later on in the day, according to The Detroit News.
Canadian government officials warned in early June that the massive wildfires in their country may produce smoke which moves over American skies through September. Smoke from the fires has even made its way to Europe, according to CNN.
The White House previously has promulgated a direct link between climate change and the intensity of this year’s Canadian forest fires, despite Canadian government statistics that do not support the connection between the two phenomena.
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