Smoke from western wildfires to create haze in New England

By Terry Eliasen, WBZ-TV Executive Weather Producer

BOSTON – The western United States is no stranger to wildfires this time of year. Currently, there are more than 70 active, large fires burning close to 500,000 acres in sections of Idaho, Montana, California, Oregon and Washington. Just on Thursday, 8 new fires were identified in this region and remain among the uncontained.

Each of the red dots represents an active wildfire in the graphic below…

To date in 2022, there have been more than 49,000 wildfires reported and more than 6.3 million acres burned. These are both the highest such numbers since 2018.

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, some of the smoke from these active fires is about to create a bit of a haze in our sky here in New England. This happens from time to time when we are in a particularly active fire season and the upper level winds align in a manner to steer the air out west in our direction. It isn’t exactly a direct shot this time around…the jet stream over the next few days will send most of the smoke into the Upper Midwest and Eastern Canada. From there it appears that some of the haze and smoke will then push southward from Canada, into New England.

You may begin to notice something in the sky Friday evening. Thanks to an absolutely gorgeous, clear day, we should be able to detect even small amounts of haze, as early as Friday evening, especially in northern New England. In fact, some areas could be in for a marvelous sunset Friday. When smoke/dust are present overhead the tiny particles help to scattered light even more so than usual, often leading to a very vibrant sunset with deep/dark color.

There will certainly be more smoke particles present in northern New England through the weekend than in southern New England. Far to the north there should be a very noticeable haze, particularly on Saturday…closer to Boston, perhaps just a bit of a hue from time to time.

One last note…there will be a full Harvest (or Corn) Moon Saturday morning. With the clear sky and smoke present, you may notice a bit of a reddish-hue to the moon after it rises Friday or Saturday night.

If you get any good sunset or Moon pics, please share them with us!  Send them to [email protected]