...POOR AIR QUALITY IN THE MID-ATLANTIC THROUGH FRIDAY DUE TO CANADIAN WILDFIRES... Due to Canadian wildfires, smoke is prevalent in the Mid- Atlantic region, including the greater Baltimore and Washington metropolitan areas. Under northwesterly winds, smoke will continue to be pushed south over our area, resulting in poor air quality and visibility potentially less than 2 miles at times. The worst conditions are most likely overnight into Friday morning east of the Blue Ridge Mountains, with some improvement likely Friday afternoon. Depending on your location, Air Quality will vary, with most areas Code Orange or Code Red into tonight. The forecast for Friday is for a Code Orange for most places east of the Blue Ridge Mountains including the Washington and Baltimore Metropolitan areas. A Code Orange Air Quality Alert means that air pollution concentrations within the region are unhealthy for sensitive groups. Sensitive groups include children, people with heart or lung disease, older adults, pregnant people, and those that spend a lot of time outdoors. Code Red, which means unhealthy for the general population. If you are under a Code Red Air Quality Alert, everyone should keep outdoor activities light and short. For those people in sensitive groups, consider moving all activities indoors. The effects of air pollution on people can be minimized by avoiding strenuous outdoor activity or exercising indoors. Go indoors if you have symptoms. Be aware of your air quality, which you can track here: https://fire.airnow.gov More info is here: https://www.airnow.gov/aqi/aqi-basics/ Air quality monitoring and forecasts are done by the states. The National Weather Service helps to disseminate these air quality forecasts. For more information on air quality, including ground-level ozone and fine particles, visit your states website: Maryland: mde.maryland.gov/programs/air/AirQualityMonitoring/Pages/index.aspx Washington DC: https://www.mwcog.org/environment/air/forecast/ Virginia: https://www.deq.virginia.gov/our-programs/air/monitoring- assessments/air-quality-forecast West Virginia: https://dep.wv.gov/daq/air-monitoring/Pages/AirQualityIndex.aspx
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