With many ongoing wildfires around the province, forecasted weather is leading meteorologists to believe smoky skies are on the way for the upcoming weekend.
A strong upper-level high-pressure ridge will persist over most of B.C. through the weekend, ensuring dry conditions and mostly sunshine with very warm air for this time of year, according to Global News meteorologist Mark Madryga.
But coupled with those dry conditions and warm air is the possibility of smoky skies.
“The flow of air in the low to mid levels of the atmosphere is now pushing onto the South Coast from the northeast, also known as outflow,” said Madryga.
“This will continue through Saturday, ensuring an invasion of Interior wildfire smoke onto the South Coast. As this flow slowly turns to southerly later this weekend, additional smoke may then invade from Washington state.”
As to how much smoke will be in the skies this weekend, it’s too hard to predict, Madryga said, however, a “general deterioration in visibility and air quality is likely in many south coastal areas, including the Lower Mainland.”
Several wildfires continue to burn across the province, especially in the Southern Interior and the new wildfire burning in Hope.
Smoke from these fires will continue to spread across many regions of the province, further deteriorating air quality.
A few regions remain under a smoky skies bulletin, which can be seen on Environment Canada’s public weather alerts webpage.
Currently, there are seven special air quality advisories issued by Environment Canada for the Arrow Lakes-Slocan Lake, B.C. Peace River, Fraser Canyon, Kootenay Lake, Similkameen, West Columbia and West Kootenay areas.