WASHINGTON – The air quality in Washington skyrocketed to “hazardous” levels for part of Thursday morning before falling back to “Very Unhealthy” levels as millions of people in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic continue to get smothered in thick smoke blowing in from hundreds of wildfires burning in Canada.
Images from around the nation’s capital show an orange haze in the sky, much like what New York City experienced on Wednesday.
People visiting many of the monuments in Washington, as well as national park rangers, were seen wearing masks to protect themselves from the harmful effects of the wildfire smoke.
The Washington air quality levels reached “hazardous” levels on Thursday morning when the Air Quality Index (AQI) hit 313. Those levels dropped a bit to “Very Unhealthy” levels later in the morning.
The AQI ranges from 0 to 500 and has six color-coded categories to correspond to a different level of health concern, according to AirNow.gov. Lower numbers equate to better air quality, and higher numbers equate to poorer air quality.
WHAT TO DO WHEN WILDFIRE SMOKE SMOTHERS YOUR AREA, AND HOW TO KEEP YOUR HOME’S AIR CLEAN
Impacts from the Canadian wildfire smoke are expected to stick around for the next few days. On Thursday, an area of low pressure swirling off the Northeast coast will drift a little to the west, shifting the worst smoke to the south and west. A switch to southerly winds over the weekend should improve air quality.
While major cities such as New York City experienced hazardous air quality on Wednesday, metropolitan areas such as Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington will see smoke conditions deteriorate during the day on Thursday.
WILDFIRES CAN BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH EVEN IF YOU’RE NOWHERE NEAR ONE
More than 100 million Americans across the eastern half of the country will be under Air Quality Alerts on Thursday.
Washington is among those included in Air Quality Alerts, as are major metropolitan areas, including New York City, Philadelphia and Norfolk, Virginia.
WHY YOU SHOULD AVOID REFUELING YOUR CAR OR GRILLING DURING UNHEALTHY AIR QUALITY
Several cities across Pennsylvania topped the chart of worst air quality in the U.S. late Thursday morning, with Washington at one point measuring 5th-worst. Other cities on the list as having “hazardous” air quality levels Thursday morning include Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Rolling Meadows, Delaware.
WHAT IS THE AIR QUALITY INDEX?
A regular assessment of air quality in the United States started in 1976, about six years after the Environmental Protection Agency was created.
According to AirNow.gov, the law requires any metropolitan area with a population of more than 350,000 to report air quality daily.
The Air Quality Indexs we know it today was released in 1999, according to AirNow.gov. It has gone through several updates over the years, but the goal has always been the same — to offer people an easy-to-understand daily report about the air they’re breathing and indicate what air quality is dangerous.