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Modest smoke plumes swept NYC Friday night, expected back Sunday morning
By
Nsikan Akpan
Published Jun 9, 2023
Modified Jun 10, 2023
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By
Nsikan Akpan
Published Jun 9, 2023
Modified Jun 10, 2023
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Air quality improved across New York City Saturday, after a modest plume of Canadian wildfire smoke swept across the tristate region Friday night. Officials and meteorologists predict another could arrive Saturday evening and into Sunday morning if the current forecasts hold.
They do not predict that the air quality index (AQI) will return to hazardous levels so New Yorkers can still enjoy outdoor activities this weekend. But they’re urging parents, family, friends and caretakers to monitor symptoms among children and people with underlying conditions as air quality could fluctuate at times.
“Conditions may appear to have improved since early this week, but it does not mean that we are in the clear, particularly for sensitive groups,” Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Philip Banks said at a public safety briefing held Friday afternoon at City Hall. He was joined by NYC Emergency Management Commissioner Zachary Iscol, city Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan and Victoria Cerullo, acting executive director for the Mayor's Office of Climate & Environmental Justice.
Banks listed the sensitive groups as children, teenagers, people with lung diseases such as asthma, heart disease, diabetes and people who are active outdoors. Effects of exposure to air pollution include coughing, eye irritation and shortness of breath. Banks and Vasan urged people at very high risk for complications to spend as much time as possible inside and wear high-quality masks outdoors.
“We recommend limiting time outside and reducing activity levels if you are unusually sensitive to particle pollution,” Vasan said. “What that means for New Yorkers is people with heart or breathing problems or older adults.”
Projections by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that the New York metropolitan area may see a plume Friday night around 9 p.m. The air clears on Saturday, and then another plume is forecasted to arrive early Sunday morning.
Canadian wildfires in Ontario and Quebec had been delivering large amounts of dangerous smoke to the New York metro area earlier this week. That was due to a stalled, swirling cyclone of air near Maine that was blocking the typically eastward airflow and forcing the smoke south.
Meteorologists say this air mass is weakening and shifting west over New York and surrounding states. It’s basically acting like a protective dome, and that’s now shifting the smoke plumes toward the Midwest.
But the tristate area sits on the edge of the dome, so some wisps may occasionally crossover.
Public radio meteorologist Garett Argianas told Gothamist that AQI levels might range between "moderate" to “unhealthy for sensitive groups” when the plumes arrive. He added that Sunday's prediction is less certain as smoke forecasts are less precise beyond a 24-hour window.
“Once you get out about a day or so, those smoke projections can be off. So it's certainly advised to check in day to day.” Argianas said. He added that warmer temperatures on Sunday could slightly increase levels of ground-level ozone, another air pollutant that’s common in urban areas.
The forecast projections arrived not long after the city’s air quality had reached a turning point. For the first time since Tuesday, the air quality index dropped to what environmental officials consider "good."
“For this time of year, we're normally between zero and 50 (AQI), which would be in the green or healthy levels,” said health commissioner Vasan. “It's not uncommon when you have a period of high temperature, not too many storms, high heat to have a day where the AQI is above 100 for a day. But typically, it doesn't last longer than that.”
A hazy view of the Manhattan skyline from Long Island City, captured just before 2 p.m. on June 7.
Chau Lam
Iscol recommended that people register for Notify NYC to get updates on air quality and other aspects of public safety. He said the digital platform has more than a million subscribers and is available in 14 languages, including American Sign Language. Vasan also urged New Yorkers to keep tabs on developments via the city health department’s website.
“We are now distributing masks across hundreds of firehouses and precincts across the city, and so I encourage everybody to take advantage of that,” Iscol said.
Cerullo reflected on how the intensity and number of fires are higher with climate change — and how wildfire season is peaking earlier in many places, nationally and internationally.
“Unless we accelerate our efforts to combat climate change, these fires and other extreme weather events will become more and more common,” Cerullo said.
Vasan said that the weekend conditions would be good enough to be outside with his children.
“But I'm going to check on how my children are feeling regularly, watching for watery eyes, sore throats, and shortness of breath, and I'll bring them inside if they're showing any signs of this irritation,” he said. Banks added that he expected beaches to remain open throughout the weekend.
Based on weather predictions, Iscol and Argianas expected NYC’s air quality to clear and return to normal early next week.
This story was updated with the latest weather forecasts and a chart showing the AQI measurements for the night of Friday, June 9.
Tagged
new york city
environment
NYC air quality
Health and Science
Nsikan Akpan
Nsikan is the former editor of the health and science desk at WNYC/Gothamist. Nsikan was previously at National Geographic where he worked as a science editor, overseeing its COVID-19 coverage in addition to other topics in science, health and technology. Before National Geographic, he worked for more than four years at PBS NewsHour, where he co-created an award-winning video series named ScienceScope. He shared a 2020 Emmy for the PBS NewsHour series “Stopping a Killer Pandemic” and in 2019 received a George Foster Peabody Award for the PBS NewsHour series “The Plastic Problem.” Nsikan has also worked for NPR, Science News Magazine, Science Magazine, KUSP Central Coast Public Radio, the Santa Cruz Sentinel and as a writer at the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University. He holds a doctorate in pathobiology from Columbia University and is an alum of the science communication program at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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