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High levels of smog are hitting the east side cities around North America due to the ongoing Canadian wildfires, according to reports.
New York City is under an Air Quality Health Advisory until Thursday morning due to the wind speeds kicking up and pushing smoke across the five boroughs. The smoke is traveling to the south from more than 150 forest fires in Quebec, the New York Post reports.
One hundred ten of those fires have been out of control, per the outlet. What is happening now, according to USA Today, at least 100 million people are affected by air quality alerts as of Wednesday afternoon.
“We’ll be in this same kind of weather pattern through today, and tomorrow as well,” Fox Weather meteorologist Stephen McCloud told the Post. “By Sunday night we should start to see improvement as a new storm system from the west approaches and starts to move this storm system out.”
The New York Post has reported that the air quality in New York City has reached horrible air levels after the Sept. 11 attack as of late Wednesday afternoon.
Late night Tuesday (June 6), the air quality in parts of the city had reached a “very unhealthy” level.
By Wednesday, the air quality in all five boroughs was the worst of any major city in the world, per IQair.
New York City's air quality index (which measures pollution levels ranging from 0 to 500) was an astounding 353 AQI on Wednesday afternoon.
Anything over 301 is considered hazardous.
While New York City remains hidden under a dense fog of smoke, Pennsylvania reported just as dire smog conditions.
Several areas across the two states are among the highest AQI locations as of Wednesday afternoon, according to AirNow.
Those areas include Scranton, Wilkes-Barres, and Susquehanna Valley in Pennsylvania and Kent County, Sussex County.
The Lehigh Valley, Berks County, Philadelphia, and other areas of Pennsylvania are among the counties that are also hit hard by pollution levels caused by Canadian wildfires.
Local wildfires are also impacting parts of Pennsylvania.
Wednesday is now a “Code Red” day for air quality across Pennsylvania.
Delaware is facing the same air quality crisis as these other states. As of 10 a.m., Wednesday, the air quality index (AQI) throughout most of Delaware was above 200.
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