The Silver Screen Oasis

You should see the Manhattan sky tonight, it's bizarre! I thought it was going to rain, but there's no rain in the forecast. It's evidently caused by smoke from Canada.

https://earthsky.org/earth/canadian-wil ... ity-alert/

Swithin wrote: ↑June 6th, 2023, 6:31 pm You should see the Manhattan sky tonight, it's bizarre! I thought it was going to rain, but there's no rain in the forecast. It's evidently caused by smoke from Canada.

https://earthsky.org/earth/canadian-wil ... ity-alert/

We had the same thing a few years back with fires in Mexico and Central America.

We're also under an air quality alert, but for plain, old ozone. Quite a big chunk of the U.S. is under some sort of air quality alert - any place that's grey on this map:

I plan to walk down to the theater district -- about a mile -- to meet some UK friends for a drink after a show. I will wear an N95, they say that's the only mask that may help. So back to masks...

It's been eerie waking up to dim orange mornings. I took a picture of the sun just to remember the odd colors:


The atmosphere lightens to gray once the sun is up. When out walking on top of a drumlin, only soft outlines are discernible about a half mile into the valley. After that, it's just cloudy smoke blocking out all visibility.
You can even see the haze when looking down the street-


The last time I saw this kind of eerie sky was Super Storm Sandy- the sky was bright pink (I took pics of that too) But there was no fire/smoke smell like this - you smell it the moment you awake.

I feel so badly for Canada, this immense smoke plume just hints at the extent of their devastation.

It seems a bit better this morning, i.e. the sky is not yellow, but it can change in an instant. I was supposed to go to an exhibition opening last night, but it was cancelled. I've got a lot to do today around town, hope it's not as bad as yesterday. But the air quality index is still "very unhealthy."

Irwin Allen had a crystal ball:

Yesterday was the first time I've ever known a baseball game to be called on account of poor air quality.
It was the Tigers/Phillies game in Philadelphia.

You'd have figured a team from Detroit would be used to poor air quality but that wildfire smoke is really something else.


Sepiatone

This sort of thing happened to us here in the San Francisco Bay Area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Skies_Day
I wish everyone well.

In 2020, when the Beachie Creek Fire burned down almost 200,000 acres of the Willamette Nat'l Forest in Oregon, the skies at my parents' house in Salem were orange due to the smoke. Salem is about 40 miles west of the fire. This fire was particularly devastating to my family, as it leveled Detroit, OR where we always stopped for ice cream on the way to Sisters and Bend. My parents also rented a small house in Mill City in the mid-80s when I was in preschool and had friends who lived in nearby Gates. Both Gates and Mill City were also heavily devastated by this fire. The beautiful picturesque drive through the Santiam Pass (from Salem to Bend) isn't as pretty anymore. Now it's driving through miles of charred trees.

The smoke was so bad in Oregon because of this fire. In Portland (about 80 miles northwest), the skies weren't quite as dark, but the smoke was horrendous. My husband worked in a food cart outside at the time and his cart was closed for 3 days because it wasn't safe to be outside. My work was closed for 2 days. I work in a warehouse and due to the dock doors having to be opened and closed constantly, the air wasn't safe. The air burned your lungs and felt (and smelled) like you were inside of a giant campfire.



This is what the skies looked like at my parents' house in Salem in August-September of 2020. My dad's truck is in the foreground. It is actually a royal blue color, but looks black in the photo. This picture was taken by my dad in the middle of the day.

The smoke is no joke. I hope everyone on the East Coast who is affected by the fires in Canada stay safe.

Swithin wrote: ↑June 8th, 2023, 7:00 am It seems a bit better this morning, i.e. the sky is not yellow, but it can change in an instant. I was supposed to go to an exhibition opening last night, but it was cancelled. I've got a lot to do today around town, hope it's not as bad as yesterday. But the air quality index is still "very unhealthy."

Stay home.

All the so-called "news" stations (including The Weather Channel) keep using the word "apocalyptic"

Not even close as far as I'm concerned.

Did anyone ever read The Hopkins Manuscript? I did as a teenager and have never forgotten the nightmarish collision scenario! I still think of it to this day, hoping Earth never has to experience this horror (and the aftermath).....

I remember the fire in Detroit, Oregon. My cousin was still alive and terrified. She was very disabled and feared having to evacuate her home in Keizer, which is just above Salem. I don't remember for sure if lightning was what started that fire.
We had record setting lightning in California. It created a complex of fires and the smoke overwhelmed the skies.
We learned how to stay home during Covid-19. Please do so if you can.

jimimac71 wrote: ↑June 8th, 2023, 1:03 pm I remember the fire in Detroit, Oregon. My cousin was still alive and terrified. She was very disabled and feared having to evacuate her home in Keizer, which is just above Salem. I don't remember for sure if lightning was what started that fire.
We had record setting lightning in California. It created a complex of fires and the smoke overwhelmed the skies.
We learned how to stay home during Covid-19. Please do so if you can.

The Beachie Creek Fire started with lightning, but then accelerated due to a combination of a windstorm, a downed power line, and the heatwave we'd had all summer. I think communities near the fire, like Stayton, Sublimity, Silverton, Mt Angel, Aumsville, etc. all had a "Be ready to go" evacuation, but fortunately never had to evacuate. Luckily, the fire never got close enough to the Salem-Keizer area.

I didn't stay home during COVID, I went to work every single day. But the smoke was no joke, you did not want to be out in it. Our focus was more on keeping the smoke out of our house, because of our 2.5 oz parrot. We didn't want him ingesting the smoke.

Air quality is 147 at the moment, which is much lower than it's been, but still is "unhealthy for sensitive groups." It feels much better out, and the sky looks pretty normal. This could change.