Smoke from the West Coast fires has reached all the way to Washington, D.C.
You've seen the harrowing images of West Coast skies this past week, as wildfires continue to rage across California, Oregon, and Washington. Now, the smoke that created that apocalyptic orange glow has moved across the country, though the air quality and appearance is nowhere near as drastic as in the Pacific states.
The National Weather Service office in Sterling, Virginia, confirmed that the "hazy appearance to the sky" in the Washington, D.C. area on Monday is a result of smoke from the western fires getting caught in the jet stream and floating swiftly toward the Atlantic.
Wow-- smoke from the West Coast fires has reached DC https://t.co/gqGSN7qfoB
— Jennifer Haberkorn (@jenhab) September 14, 2020
Indeed, both NASA and AirNow — which monitors U.S. air quality — predict the smoke plume area will stretch far and wide this week.
Here's a map from https://t.co/OB2UM7gO3H which approximates smoke plume area in gray... it's covering much of Lower 48, including DC area: pic.twitter.com/hIfBTRzLzT
— Capital Weather Gang (@capitalweather) September 14, 2020
this smoke is coming for the east coast. https://t.co/uWCD9vyXpo
— Tim Dickinson (@7im) September 14, 2020
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