Previsão do tempo, weather forecast: The Extraordinary Longevity of Wildfire Smoke

One of the most amazing aspects of this event is the staying power and long-range transport of wildfire smoke. A view of the eastern Pacific shows bands of smoke pulled offshore from the West Coast, swirling and moving around for many days (see picture). I have indicated a few offshore smoke features with arrows, as well as a Pacific low center (L), and a tropical storm (T). This Pacific will act as a long-term repository of smoke that will move in intermittently for days after we go through the expected clearing on Saturday.

But what I find as stunning is that the U.S. East Coast is smoked in by the West Coast wildfire effluent, as shown by a high resolution image yesterday (see below). In MANY ways, wildfires are a national problem that decision-makers in DC are literally experiencing.

To get a better view of the amazing long-distance transport of smoke, let me show you some graphics from a modeling system I have not presented on this blog yet--NOAA's RAPSmoke system, which includes a hemispheric scale simulation of smoke.

I will show you vertically integrated smoke--the total smoke in a vertical column of the atmosphere. Here is the predicted distribution at 5 AM PDT this morning, Smoke concentrations go from low values (blue) to high (dark red).

Just extraordinary. You can see smoke swirling into the low center offshore and even into a tropical storm off of Mexico. The worst smoke is over the NW and California, but dense smoke extends to the east coast and beyond. These features are confirmed by the satellite imagery

Now lets go forward in time! The situation at 5 AM Friday shows smoke is still moving into the Washington as the Pacific low weakens and approaches the coast. Smoke is moving into the southeast U.S.

On Saturday morning at 5 AM, much cleaner air is moving into western Washington and Oregon, with smoke all over the domain. Some smoke appears to be heading towards Hawaii.

As I will describe in more detail on my podcast tomorrow, Saturday appears to be the day of substantial improvement west of the Cascade crest. It will be a great relief.

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