Haze Moves Through Midwest, as New York City Avoids the Worst for Now
On Thursday, the air upstate was hazy in several places, including Buffalo, the state’s second largest city, and Rochester, both of which sit opposite Canada on the shores of the Great Lakes. Haze was even visible as far east as the Hudson Valley, where a dreary miasma hung over the picturesque towns north of the five boroughs.
In Canada, where fires have burned more than 13 million acres of forest, tens of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes. On Wednesday, Toronto, the country’s largest city, had some of the worst air quality in the world, according to IQAir, a Swiss air quality technology company.
By Thursday morning, there were at least 500 wildfires burning across Canada, and more than half of them were burning out of control, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. Canada’s wildfire season started several weeks early this year, which means the fires could continue to impact air quality across North American for several more weeks.
In Pittsburgh, the air quality was so poor on Thursday that smoke covered the tops of downtown’s skyscrapers. City pools were closed for the second day in a row, and the Pittsburgh Pirates delayed the start of their game against the San Diego Padres.
“It looks pretty gross out there,” said Maria Montaño, the mayor’s press secretary.
In Cleveland, Christopher Jen, a 23-year-old dental student, was showing relatives around town on what felt like a hot and muggy winter’s day. His guests had stopped trying to take pictures of the sights, he said, because the haze made it so hard to see anything.
Source: The New York Times
