Orange sun rising in Milky Skies. It must be Forest Fire Smoke Season Again

[Lowell]

That's how the skies appeared to me this morning, as they did during last year's 'smoke season'. It seems this will be an annual affair now. Is the new norm?

Just checking I can see that the smoke from major fires in California and Canada are arriving. Remarkably the air quality index at the moment is a low 35 but that has to change.

[sirrealone]

I read an article somewhere that, with less rainfall being the new norm, some areas in Canada are reviving the practice of controlled burns. They're done either at the beginning or end of a season, and are designed to remove a good deal of density. Without all that fuel, fires don't spread as quickly and can be brought under control sooner. If this practice does take hold, hopefully it would reverse the trend we've been seeing, though it will likely take a few years before you'd see a noticeable difference.

[Jimaz]

The web address for the NOAA animated smoke forecast recently changed to https://apps.gsl.noaa.gov/smoke/. The Surface Smoke map there is particularly useful. Bookmark it.

We've been pretty lucky here lately but that smoke in northern California looks like a nightmare. That could easily shift toward us if those fires last long enough.

[Jimaz]

NOAA is forecasting a new surface smoke plume from Winnipeg expected to hit Detroit tonight from 9PM to 4AM. Use the above link to see it for yourself. It looks like about 30 μg/m³ so that's toward the high end of the range.

Gentlemen, start your HEPA filters.

[Zacha341]

^ Ready to plug it in overnight!

[401don]

I read an article somewhere that, with less rainfall being the new norm, some areas in Canada are reviving the practice of controlled burns. They're done either at the beginning or end of a season, and are designed to remove a good deal of density. Without all that fuel, fires don't spread as quickly and can be brought under control sooner. If this practice does take hold, hopefully it would reverse the trend we've been seeing, though it will likely take a few years before you'd see a noticeable difference.

That's a practice used by Indigenous Canadians that the gov't is trying to learn from but not the cause of any of these fires. It's been a really dry spring combined with little snow pack and run off. Fires are starting early and it's going to be a long summer.

[Danny]

Blame global climate change.

[Jimaz]

I was hoping the rain would wash some of the smoke out of the air but Michigan Radio/WUOM said it's having the opposite effect. It's pulling the thicker high-altitude smoke down to ground level. They didn't elaborate but I suspect the rain is creating a cool downdraft and the thicker smoke isn't coming into contact with the raindrops after the rain has passed so there's no washing effect.

The NOAA surface smoke map is broken today. It just says "Time not available." Here's the AirNow chart:

Orange is "unhealthy for sensitive groups." Red is "unhealthy."

[stasu1213]

Weather modification. Cloud seeding

[CassTechGrad]

"Orange sun rising in Milky Skies"

Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes

[JBMcB]

Here's Project Farm's review of a few different furnace air filters. Good for large particle removal, but wildfire smoke includes a bunch of fine particle matter as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkjRKIRva58

TLDW: 3M Filtrete 1900 gives the best filtering performance while still giving good air flow, prolonging the life of your furnace. It's expensive but packs in 50% more filter media of most other air filters.

To clean out fine particulate matter, you need an electrostatic air filter, or an air purifier, to wit:

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/r...-air-purifier/

Recommends the Coway Airmega for around $200. Amusingly they also try duck taping a Honeywell furnace air filter to a Lasko box fan, and the results were pretty good for a $40 DIY solution.

[jcole]

During Covid, the state was sending out a similar creation to libraries, etc, to try to keep the air clean. It was a box built of a couple filters that you slipped the box fan into and could change the filters as needed. It worked as a stop gap measure until we were able to get regular air purifiers.

Here's Project Farm's review of a few different furnace air filters. Good for large particle removal, but wildfire smoke includes a bunch of fine particle matter as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkjRKIRva58

TLDW: 3M Filtrete 1900 gives the best filtering performance while still giving good air flow, prolonging the life of your furnace. It's expensive but packs in 50% more filter media of most other air filters.

To clean out fine particulate matter, you need an electrostatic air filter, or an air purifier, to wit:

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/r...-air-purifier/

Recommends the Coway Airmega for around $200. Amusingly they also try duck taping a Honeywell furnace air filter to a Lasko box fan, and the results were pretty good for a $40 DIY solution.