So how did this smoke get here, and can we expect more? A local scientist says they have been impacted by both local weather and broader climate trends.
So how did this smoke get here, and can we expect more? A local scientist says they have been impacted by both local weather and broader climate trends.
“I’ve lived in Maryland, about 40 years, and this is the worst air quality from a forest fire I’ve ever seen,” University of Maryland atmospheric and oceanic scientist Russell Dickerson told WTOP.
The smoke hails from wildfires burning across the western provinces to Quebec. Dickerson told WTOP that these intense fires are hot enough to create their own weather.
“The fires are so big and so hot. They generate a special kind of cloud; we call it pyrocumulus. The air, full of smoke, rises up high in the atmosphere, where it has a longer lifetime and can get caught on rivers of wind and transported to long distances,” Dickerson said.
