(Bloomberg) --
New York City and the US Northeast face another day of eerie orange skies and choking smoke from fires across eastern Canada.Air quality alerts stretch across Quebec and Ontario, including Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa, and from New York and New England to South Carolina in the US. New York schools have cancelled outdoor activities and Mayor Eric Adams has urged residents to limit their time outside as the smoke from forest fires across Quebec continues to pour south with little immediate hope for relief.
“Relief is not coming anytime soon,” said Richard Bann, a forecaster at the US Weather Prediction Center, an arm of the National Weather Service. “For the time being the Northeast US is in a position where it going to continue to ebb and flow with the thickness and intensity of the smoke.”
Watch: Smoke From Canadian Wildfires Spreads to NYC (Video)
While the main culprit are the fires raging across Quebec, a low pressure system stuck off Nova Scotia is providing the mechanism to pour that smoke south across eastern Ontario and into New York and the US East Coast, Bann said. Low pressure systems spin counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, which means the winds blow from north to south at the edge of the fires.
Across Canada, as of Tuesday, 423 fires were raging, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. In all 2,305 fires have consumed four million hectares across the country.Air quality in New York is hovering at unhealthy levels, according to IQAir, a pollution mapping tool. Currently the city’s air ranges up to 168 on its 0 to 500 scale having reached as high as 222 overnight. As bad as that is, Canada’s capital Ottawa has reached 471, meaning conditions are hazardous. Things were even worse in Kingston, Ontario to the south where readings hit 475 at 7 a.m.
In addition to the threat in Canada, dry conditions and high winds are keeping the fire threat high across the US Mid-Atlantic, Bann said. While fire warnings haven’t been posted yet, it might just be a matter of time, he added.In other weather news today: China: Sweltering temperatures across China are killing livestock and stretching power grids, an early heat wave that portends another summer of disruption for Asia’s industry and food supply.
India: India’s monsoon rains will likely start in 48 hours after a severe storm delayed the weather event vital for the economy.
Europe: The warm temperatures blanketing most of the Nordic region and the continent will last into next week, with below-normal levels dominating the south, according to forecaster Maxar Technologies.
--With assistance from Marika Katanuma and Janine Phakdeetham.
