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Central PA Summer 2023


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1. I am officially discouraged and frankly more than a bit worried about the smoky air in our future. According to my scrawled notes for the 3 stations around Williamsport, we were

156-157-160 Friday at 6:06a

115-122-131 today at 2:26p

149-144-152 today at 9:03p

There were no air quality notices for us today, things were supposed to go down -- actually yesterday but it got extended -- but here we are, more or less stuck at same levels for day and a half. I can only hope this time the promises on TV weather tonight that smoke will be pushed out will finally come true.

2. I just saw this at CNN.com and am not happy at all. It seems Canada is not very good on fire management and underfunds it too. Pot calling kettle black I know -- but our smoke usually does not go into other countries.

This jumped out at me. Does this mean the smoke we are getting is also far more dense and has much more pollution than ordinary smoke? Also that it seems we are going to keep getting this year after year. Not every year necessarily, granted, but that we will have this stuff coming in off and on indefinitely. 

"Most of Canada is covered by boreal forest, the world’s largest and most intact biome. The ecosystem with trees like spruce, pine, and fir makes up about one-third of all forests on the planet."

...

"Boreal forests are carbon dense, releasing 10 to 20 times more planet-heating carbon pollution for each unit of area burned by wildfires than other ecosystems, according to a 2022 study published in the journal Science Advances. "

Thoughts?

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/07/01/us/canada-wildfire-smoke-us-air-quality/index.html

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1. I am officially discouraged and frankly more than a bit worried about the smoky air in our future. According to my scrawled notes for the 3 stations around Williamsport, we were
156-157-160 Friday at 6:06a
115-122-131 today at 2:26p
149-144-152 today at 9:03p
There were no air quality notices for us today, things were supposed to go down -- actually yesterday but it got extended -- but here we are, more or less stuck at same levels for day and a half. I can only hope this time the promises on TV weather tonight that smoke will be pushed out will finally come true.
2. I just saw this at CNN.com and am not happy at all. It seems Canada is not very good on fire management and underfunds it too. Pot calling kettle black I know -- but our smoke usually does not go into other countries.
This jumped out at me. Does this mean the smoke we are getting is also far more dense and has much more pollution than ordinary smoke? Also that it seems we are going to keep getting this year after year. Not every year necessarily, granted, but that we will have this stuff coming in off and on indefinitely. 
"Most of Canada is covered by boreal forest, the world’s largest and most intact biome. The ecosystem with trees like spruce, pine, and fir makes up about one-third of all forests on the planet."
...
"Boreal forests are carbon dense, releasing 10 to 20 times more planet-heating carbon pollution for each unit of area burned by wildfires than other ecosystems, according to a 2022 study published in the journal Science Advances. "
Thoughts?
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/07/01/us/canada-wildfire-smoke-us-air-quality/index.html
Don't a large number of trees in the boral forest needs forest fires to complete their life cycle?

Anyways, a large number of these fires the only logical decision is to let them burn themselves out. If it bothers the USA that much they can pay for it's eradication.

There have been plenty of years in last 100 years with more acres burned by now I believe. The issue is as the pattern has shifted from lanina to el Nina these passed two years we seem to go through extended periods in the mid latitude where systems break off and just get stuck. Much much longer than normal and with models defaulting to climo the longer out they go we end up selling ourselves fools gold over and over

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I also want to say the smoke from fires up north have always been there. Its this weird never ending unique rhex bloc on repeat that keeps this smokey groundhog day movie going.

I will say,dear God we need to put some money into fire science to get a hold of our horrid smoke models.

I remember thinking as a kid how amazing it must have been for previous generations to wake up to surprise blizzards. Maybe we all are just in hell and smoke is hells blizzards

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50 minutes ago, canderson said:

There are more than 500 individual fires spread across the 2nd largest country on earth and all in area without roads so zero access. 9 million hectares have burned. 

Only thing that can help is rain - which isn’t availability apparently. 

The article mentions controlled burning and thinning too. When all those people died out in California awhile back there was a lot of talk about lack of controlled burning there. I realize now I haven't heard much about controlled burning since then. I guess it often ends up being an argument with experts calling for it and fearful nearby residents saying no. And I suppose the drier it is, the more reluctant residents are -- but also fires can be that much worse then too.

So many questions, and then add possible climate change effects into the mix and that makes everything even more complicated.

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11:05p: Weather guy at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton now says same thing as yesterday and earlier today about things getting better as in not a problem anymore but added at the end number should be about 100 tomorrow. He said it was 120 over there now. That is not going back to normal and they (and we) are supposed to be getting rain which should help but evidently not much.

If I had family members with asthma and other lung problems this smoky air along with the uncertainty would really be driving me nuts. I am lucky I can just be annoyed and wonder how this is effecting my nasal allergies without really worrying.

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I'm now wonder if smoke from a boral forest burning interacts within our atmosphere quite differently then say smoke from the forest fires in the west, or say the brush fires Arizona seems to get.

At least we haven't had a Peshtigo firestorm type event. When I say that I mean I fire so out of control so quickly that that a little brush fire can turn into as a 10 mile wide 100ft + wall of fall who can burn a path 40 miles long in 2 hours and create inflow winds well over 100mph extending our miles from advancing line that hits a town head on in the middle of the night killing 1500+.

Paradise was tragic , but it wasn't close to this level

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52 minutes ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

MDT had .25 of rain and temps yesterday were 2 Below normal.

MDT is starting off July just like all of June produced above normal precip & below normal temperatures.

This coming week we get the heat

 

its F-ing humid this morning. We had a call at 530, I was drenched

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3 minutes ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

DT says there is no sign of extreme heat over the next few weeks.

Maybe so, but high 80s most of this coming week

1 minute ago, Blizzard of 93 said:

Radar is juiced now out in the Altoona & Bedford area moving to the east, so we may get a shower or storm in a couple of hours.

Yeah, I just looked at radar

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