Tuesday was another day of "unhealthy" to "very unhealthy" air quality. Low level smoke lingered due to poor air mixing and stagnant low-level air. In addition, winds are blowing some additional smoke from Oregon to our area for the next couple days.
An Air Quality Alert remains in effect until Thursday. It is posted below.
You will notice that unhealthy-very unhealthy air quality will persist until at least Thursday. The "200" forecast listed is a good estimate, and I would predict AQI readings of 190-230 during the next 2 days. It is likely that additional smoke from Oregon will be blown north to our area on Wednesday and Thursday, hence the high AQI forecasts for those days.
I am glad to note that rain does exist!! Some areas have received light showers Monday night, through Tuesday, and into Tuesday night. Here is the 24 hour precipitation from 8 PM Monday-8 PM Tuesday.
Most areas have received 0.01-0.05 inches of rain. This is good, but a little amount of rain like this will not scour out the smoke. We need more rain to clean out the air, along with a weather system that will bring marine-influenced air. That is what will improve air quality.
Luckily...the odds appear to be in our favor! Unfortunately, due to the time this blog is written, I can't provide forecast models for you. The new model runs are coming in, which takes awhile. Instead...here is the NWS forecast for Puyallup. Wednesday and Thursday, will be smoky, but look...rain icons!! Never have we been so excited for rain!
It is important to know that rain will break up the smoke particles in the air, but the marine-influenced air will play an even bigger role in ousting the smoke. This is seen in that air quality forecast earlier in the blog post. Although some rain comes late Thursday/early Friday, marine air arrives in full by Saturday, when AQI finally returns to "good"!! The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency's discussion for Sept. 15-19 (below) describes this.
Here's the bottom line...expect Wednesday and Thursday to look and smell smoky, like the past 5 days (yes, it's been that long since we've had good air). Improving air quality will come by late Thursday/early Friday. Conditions continue to improve after that.
Don't be surprised by some scattered light showers through the next couple days, and hang in there...we're almost through with smoke!
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