Smoke hangs around after traveling a long way

The smoke from fires in Canada is making things rough on some people in our area.

For the last couple of days, the view from Colorado Springs has been more than simply fog, it’s a haze.

Roger Magar of Colorado Springs said, “From what I hear, it’s coming from Canada.”

Wildfires there have scorched hundreds of thousands of acres.

The smoke has caused state meteorologists to issue a wildfire smoke health advisory for our area. Magar says he’s seen this before.

“We used to live in Arizona, in Tucson. When Yellowstone was burning we had haze from there,” he said.

We know smoke can travel long distances. But how?

What’s happening is that the jet stream is bringing all that smoke and haze into Southern Colorado.

So what has it done to our air quality?

This morning the AQI – the Air Quality Index – was at a 146 out of a possible 500. That’s considered to be unhealthy for sensitive groups.

When it gets like this some people have to take it easy.

Magar knows one such person, “my wife would, she’s asthmatic.”

So when will they be able to breathe a little easier?

Some of the rain that we’re seeing lately will help. But to get rid of the smoke, that rain would have to fall on the fires in Canada.

The wildfire smoke health advisory expires at 9 am Thursday morning.