Wildfire smoke moving in...

[Drip_Torch]

Environment Canada satellite images on Wednesday showed high-elevation smoke streaming up from the U.S over B.C.'s Southern Interior.

https://www.castanet.net/news/Kelowna/2 ... -moving-in

I have some highly unofficial good news and bad news for you.

The good news, there are no significant wildfires burning in Washington State and I'd venture a fairly informed opinion that this is not wildfire smoke. The bad news, a surface cloud of PM 10 shows tracking across the Pacific Ocean since late May.

The "wildfire smoke", in my completely non-expert opinion, is actually smog from China's Xian City's May 28th smog event.

Nothing on EOSDIS, or active fire to suggest it's wildfire smoke, but I can see the cloud tracking across the pacific.

So in other words, it's likely Dust, Pollen and other pollution (PM 2.5 is also elevated in the cloud) from China .

[ferri]

Whew! I kept wondering where there was a fire in Washington state and coming up with nothing. It got hazy down here yesterday too.

Edited to add:

I also wonder about this: http://www.iflscience.com/environment/c ... ite-image/

[Drip_Torch]

Closest fire of significance I could find was over 700 nm away, south of Salt Lake, in Utah.

Of course I fired up the flight sim, loaded the 737 and flew to it to take a look. (lol) Kamloops missions were getting boring.

I looked at the volcano and it seems that cloud went the other way, over the Caribbean ocean. There's another bubble of "Asian haze" heading our way in the mid-level (850 hpa) jet, but it looks like it will get mixed up in the weather.

T-storms possible this afternoon throughout much of the interior and if you believe in ECMWF modeling some gusty winds north of Kamloops and extending through to Valemount and Grande Cache.

[ferri]

You are much more serious about this than I am.

It's funny, just about every single day the NWS says we're going to get winds of around 7-11 mph. Yesterday we had gusts of 26! So I've decided what I need to do is double it and add 30 like I do when I'm converting temps from C to F.

[alanjh595]

50 kmh = 30 mph (approx). Good try though.....

[Drip_Torch]

You are much more serious about this than I am.

My interest is in man-made disasters and particularly those that involve WUI fires. Funny, back in 94 when I took to studying the field I would have never imagined that I would take such an interest in weather and climate. I mean, fire weather was something I was taught in the 80's, but this bigger picture stuff...

There's so many tools and toys, now.

So I've decided what I need to do is double it and add 30 like I do when I'm converting temps from C to F.

That's exactly how I handled the conversion from kmh to mph when I was young and foolish. Word to the wise - don't do it. It gets very expensive and the RCMP catch on quickly.

[ferri]

I just checked. Our 7-11 mph wind has produced 2 gusts (so far) of 18 mph.

I only double and add 30 for temps. Distance I google. (I hate math. And it hates me.)

[ferri]

There is a wildfire burning in Soap Lake now. I imagine if the wind starts blowing from the south it's going to get smokey.

http://www.khq.com/story/38400549/updat ... tures-lost

[Glacier]

My brother has a new wildfire starting up near his house that's even closer than the one last year that had him evacuated. The smoke is quite think.

But don't worry, folks, he's 400km away from you.

[JagXKR]

This is not going to help. Lightning all over the place.