Intense wildfires blazing in Alberta Canada lofted smoke high enough to be grabbed by the jet stream winds which are plunging the smoke into the U.S. midwest.
The smoke is clearly visible from space satellites engulfing Calgary in western Canada with downstream flow across the border into the Great Lakes area. The huge mass of smoke was also seen across portions of the northern and eastern Atlantic.
Temperatures hotter than in Jacksonville this week have taken hold in the Pacific Northwest with places like Portland Oregon reaching the low 90s.
As many as 150 active fires are burning across Alberta and British Columbia.
Forecast models anticipate poor air quality resulting from the fallout in parts of the Midwest before spreading down into the Tennessee Valley this week.
The unhealthy air quality will concentrate in Minneapolis, Chicago, parts of Kansas and Ohio. A cold front sending it southward will likely help to dissipate the plume without any of its impacts on Georgia or Florida. Yet, parts of Florida, including Jacksonville, are having moderately poor air quality related to a separate smoke source.
Smoke over the southeast contributed to hazy skies this week in Florida and out over the Atlantic. This likely stems from significant agricultural burning in Mexico and Central America.
This smoke along with that from the wildfires in western Canada is expected to mix together somewhere over the Atlantic off the coast of the southeastern U.S.