Air quality across New York City and Washington is unhealthy for sensitive groups, along with other major US cities along the Interstate 95 corridor and worse in Pittsburgh and across the Midwest.
(Bloomberg) — Air quality across New York City and Washington is unhealthy for sensitive groups, along with other major US cities along the Interstate 95 corridor and worse in Pittsburgh and across the Midwest.
Air quality index in Manhattan reached 142, just below the 151- to 200-point range where it would be considered unhealthy for all, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow.gov. It has reached 138 in Washington and 122 in Philadelphia.
In Pittsburgh, Columbus and Cleveland, it is already unhealthy.
The smoke won’t be as overwhelming as the plume that descended from Quebec in June and turned New York’s skies a murky orange, said Josh Weiss, a forecaster at the US Weather Prediction Center. The smoke could linger in the Northeast into Tuesday.
Air quality alerts have been posted across 18 states including New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Illinois, along with several Canadian provinces.
Across Canada, 883 fires are currently burning, with 580 raging out of control, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. Since the start of this year, 4,147 fires have burned 10 million hectares (24.7 million acres.)
(Updates air quality levels in New York and Northeast starting in first paragraph.)
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