I'm near Mansfield, Ohio, working outside actually. The haze is really wild, and I do smell some smoke on the wind. I didn't find out about the fires until last night. I'd been working outside yesterday as well and the thickness of the haze was eerie. It's strange today, too. It's a beautiful day, but now knowing what the haze is from it's pretty ominous.
This is troubling, and becoming ever more widespread. In Seattle people jokingly say we have a fifth season now, after summer comes the smoke season, when the dry end of summer leads to forest fires that come with smoke hitting us, and then after that comes the fall rains that end it.
Same here in BC I'd say. This is the earliest start of the season since a while. We're already past last year's accumulated burnt area and approaching 2021 levels which was a crazy year for wildfires. And it's June 7, it's crazy.
The Seattle times reported that we were 6 inches below average in recent rainfall and had the driest May on record since 1966. So it's likely we'll have more fires in the fall. Normally we have moderate weather because the wind blows from the coast to the east. But when we have a low pressure event, it sucks the wind from BC and Eastern Washington toward the west. Even when we don't have smoke here in the concentrated Seattle area, it's affecting millions of people across the state and the country. All those people east of the Cascades are getting it worse.
We lucked out - we were in Northern Pennsylvania camping for two nights. Noticed the pinkish orange sunset. On our drive home, it seemed awfully hazy for being afternoon so I looked it up and discovered the news of the Canadian wild fires. If our camping trip was a couple days later, we might have stuck outside right in it. Of course, you breath a lot of smoke sitting around a camp fire, so maybe it doesn't make much of a difference for our health.
It didn't seem hazy as we got home yesterday, but then it rolled in, and today is worse than yesterday.
a recent conversation about this generally.. in the market, as a product, the style is to speak unambiguously to promote your brand, for sale. In the military services, the style is to command, and speak as if in command. Meanwhile, in science, it is the responsibility of the scientist to show error bars, and usually acknowledge the counter-indications. This style for a trained scientist, often comes off as confusing to the inattentive listener, or weak to the marketing or military in the crowd.
In public statements of science, there is a tension and that tension is on display here. Another angle more directly related, is that world records for known catastrophic forest fire are being set every year now. This is deeply concerning. Authorities have an interest in showing command of the situation, for real reasons. However, they are not in command of the situation. Catastrophic forest fires are increasing, and this is not in itself directly predictable, hence the comment.
