We’ve seen the sun less than a handful of times this past month. Not because of clouds but because of smoke. While the smoke can make for a beautiful sunset, turning the sun red, it would be nice to have blue skies during the day as well. We have not had very many fronts move through lately to help clear the air. Winds have been light at times too.
"I don't like it cause it burns your eyes and it's hard to breathe, it's like horrible,” said Reno resident Steve Fults.
With numerous fires up and down the west coast, the smoke is hard to avoid. An east wind would be ideal, but that’s rare for us. Nine times out of ten our winds comes out of the west, especially during a typical summer afternoon. However, our winds did come out of the east a couple weeks ago when a cool low moved through.
"I am tired of it. Of course it's gloomy, dark, like you live in Oregon and Washington where it is always cloudy,” said Reno resident Igor Drobushev.
Speaking of Oregon, we’re not the only ones hoping for rain. While Portland has already received nearly 26 inches of rain this water year, they are still 9.25 inches behind. They have only received a trace of an inch of rain over the past month. The west coast continues to see some of the worst air quality in the world. A website that ranks major cities around the world in terms of air quality, has Portland at the top spot. Reno is a smaller city, so it’s not included in the official list, but is up there in terms of global air quality as a whole. Our air quality is slightly better than a couple days ago, but is still in the unhealthy range. The air quality in Carson City turned very unhealthy Wednesday afternoon. It’s also worse south of Tahoe in the Sierra.
Our air quality is usually slightly better in the afternoon and worse at night. At night all of the smoke sits in the valley and doesn’t go anywhere. During the day, the smoke is able to thin out if winds are strong enough. Strong winds can break apart the smoke and mix it around, so it’s not sitting in one spot. The stronger the wind, the more mixing that can occur. If the wind direction is from the west, north, or south, where the fires are, it can also bring in more smoke. Smoke forecasts can be very challenging. Thankfully, there are short term models that meteorologists can use, but they are not one hundred percent accurate. A lot of the smoke depends on how the fires are doing. What we need more than anything else is for the fires to be put out.
