BALTIMORE – Due to Canadian wildfires, smoke is prevalent in the mid-Atlantic region, including the southern Maryland area. Under northerly winds, smoke will continue to be pushed south over our area. Thicker smoke may overspread parts of the area Thursday morning, resulting in poor air quality and visibility potentially less than 2 miles. Some improvement is likely through the day, but the smoke likely will continue to affect the area at times until a front on Friday potentially brings some reprieve to fine particle concentrations.
Depending on your location, Air Quality will vary, with much of the area either Code Orange or Code Red through at least Thursday. A Code Orange Air Quality Alert means that air pollution concentrations within the region are unhealthy for sensitive groups. Sensitive groups include children, people with heart or lung disease, older adults, pregnant people, and those that spend a lot of time outdoors.
Some areas may see Code Red, which means “unhealthy for the general population.” If you are under a Code Red Air Quality Alert, everyone should keep outdoor activities light and short. For those people in sensitive groups, consider moving all activities indoors.
The effects of air pollution on people can be minimized by avoiding strenuous outdoor activity or exercising indoors. Go indoors if you have symptoms.
Be aware of your air quality, which you can track here:
https://fire.airnow.gov
More info is here:
https://www.airnow.gov/aqi/aqi-basics/
Air quality monitoring and forecasts are done by the states. The
National Weather Service helps to disseminate these air quality
forecasts.
For more information on air quality, including ground-level ozone
and fine particles, visit your state’s website:
Maryland:
mde.maryland.gov/programs/air/AirQualityMonitoring/Pages/index.aspx
Washington DC:
https://www.mwcog.org/environment/air/forecast/
Virginia:
deq.virginia.gov/our-programs/air/monitoring-assessments/
air-quality-forecast
West Virginia:
https://dep.wv.gov/daq/air-monitoring/Pages/AirQualityIndex.aspx