Wildfire smoke mostly missing Western Pennsylvania so far

Wildfire smoke has returned to Pennsylvania, but its impact on air quality so far is far less severe than what the region experienced during the summer of 2023.

Chris Leonardi, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Moon, said as of Wednesday, Southwestern Pennsylvania is seeing some “very modest haze and visibility restrictions.”

“Right now, we’re not seeing any major impacts,” he said. “It’s not really impacting air quality to a significant degree.”

In most areas, people won’t even notice any smoke, according to Leonardi.

That’s because the thicker smoke is “mostly aloft,” meaning it’s higher in the atmosphere instead of near the surface of the ground, he said.

“The smoke that you can really smell and really impacts visibility — that’s not so much in our area,” Leonardi said. “It mostly will be visible as a haze layer as of now.”

However, areas north and east of Southwestern Pennsylvania are seeing thicker smoke, he said, including Central Pennsylvania and Western New York.

A code orange air quality alert was issued Tuesday for much of Eastern Pennsylvania.

“Right now, we’re not seeing major surface impacts in our area,” Leonardi said. “A lot of that will remain in (the) north and east.”

Visibility in Erie, though, is being impacted, as it’s reporting four miles of haze. This means people can only see four miles in front of them.

“On a normal clear day with low humidity and such, you can see at least 10 miles,” Leonardi explained.

DuBois is experiencing modest visibility impacts as well, at eight miles of haze, he said.

Earlier this week, there was some light haze in the upper levels of the atmosphere north of Interstate 80, according to Jeff Verszyla, meteorologist at WTAE.

“Otherwise, there has been little or no impact from wildfire smoke across Western PA,” he said.

Most of the smoke is coming from the ongoing and active Canadian wildfires, Leonardi said.

Smoke in Pennsylvania should gradually thin over the next day or two, he said, and there shouldn’t be many air quality impacts.

Verszyla said “no issues” are expected in the coming days.

If the situation happens to worsen, Leonardi said the state will issue air quality statements via the Department of Environmental Protection that the National Weather Service will pass along to the greater Pittsburgh area.

“It’s not expected to get worse,” Leonardi said. “We keep an eye on it.”