Wednesday is turning out to be another smoky day in the Okanagan.
“We are under this ridge of high pressure that we have had for such a long time,” Environment Canada meteorologist Doug Lundquist explained.
“It is trapping the air at the lowest elevations. In fact, it is so smoky that we are kind of preventing the highs from being as high as it could be so instead of highs in the 30s we are going to only get, over the next two days, highs in the high 20s.”
Lundquist said wet weather later in the week may bring some relief from the smoke.
“We are expecting a cold front for Friday….it is going to bring us some showers. So hopefully we get a few millimetres of rain to wet things down. It is going to turn over the atmosphere and mix things up which will bring down cleaner air,” said Lundquist.
“There is some end to it in sight, it is not going to be completely over with because the problem we are faced with is we are surrounded by fires. There [are] fires to the east, to the west, to the north [and] to the south. Almost every direction there is a fire.”
Lundquist also expects the wind to be blowing from the west instead of the south, possibly bringing in cleaner air from the Pacific.
The air quality was rated as seven in both the central and south Okanagan on Wednesday morning, which is considered a high health risk.
B.C. Wildfire Service said most of the smoke is coming from the Diamond Creek wildfire which started in Washington State and has crossed into Canada — because the Finlay Creek wildfire burning southwest of Peachland is not creating much smoke.
In the north Okanagan, air quality conditions were rated at a four which is considered a moderate health risk.
The air quality is expected to improve slightly in all areas of the Okanagan later in the day on Wednesday and overnight.
The entire Okanagan region remains the subject of a special air quality statement.
– with files from Shelby Thom
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