Pittsburgh Weather: Canadian wildfire smoke 'dims' the day
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - Did anyone miss the smoke?
One of the fun things about weather is that there is almost always someone who misses whatever type of weather isn't happening. Now obviously no one wants to see death and destruction but there are folks out there that enjoy a good thunderstorm.
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Are you a snow lover?
There are many out there that really look forward to the cold mornings and snow-filled days of the winter.
Some even like it hot.
For me, the joy is in the changes that will come during season changes. It almost feels like we are getting into the "change of season" pattern already but no we still have about a month to go before we start seeing some real changes.
I mention all the other joyous weather events because I think we can all agree that Canadian smoke being around is something no one here locally wants to deal with.
That's before we even get into the issues sometimes caused as the smoke is pushed to the surface and our air quality turns poor. The smoke is forecasted to be around through at least Thursday and data is showing a thick layer of Canadian smoke on top of us as of late yesterday.
When it comes to forecasting smoke, we only have one model that has been programmed to even try. The model is the HRRR with its Vertically Integrated Smoke model along with its Wildfire Smoke model that tries to forecast ground quality with "Very Fine Particulate Matter" at the ground surface.
Both are handy tools to have but are not perfect. At times the best way to forecast the impact of smoke here locally is to just look up.
Another good method is to track the smoke through online posts. This also works with air quality at the surface. We can oftentimes see poor air tracking towards us by just monitoring surface air quality readers.
Let's talk about your forecast now.
Clearly, wildfire smoke is back in place and will 'dim' sunshine today as it passes by. Yesterday with the smoke around we just hit 79 degrees.
I have us hitting 82 today with another low rain chance day. The day is getting started with comfy weather in place. Morning lows have dipped to the 50s once again (probably the last time we do that this week) with noon temperatures already in the low 80s.
There could be some very patchy fog around.
Looking ahead, rain chances remain low through at least Friday. The next good shot at seeing rain comes Sunday afternoon.
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