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Category: Math & Science

Wildfire smoke

This is pretty out of my wheelhouse, but I think its important to keep you in the know. Thanks to out of control wildfires in Canada, a ton of smoke has been lofted into the atmosphere. Here is an image via GOES 19, a high resolution geo-stationary satellite over the great lakes. Brown is smoke, green is terrain, white are clouds. 

There are different measurements: 
AQI which = Air Quality Index. This measures PM10 (10 micrometers(um) or smaller) and PM2.5. PM 2.5 is far more hazardous due to the small size and its small size, it can naturally bypass traditional bodily defenses. PM2.5 density is generally measured as ug/m3 (micrograms per cubic meter)/ 35 is generally not ideal, while 150 is generally not recommended to be outside at all. 


Models generally blow absolute chunks at modeling wildfire smoke, but for illustrative purposes, its good enough of an idea of how widespread the near surface level smoke can be expected in ~48 hours.  

Primary steering mechanism is expected to be a huge ridge at 500 mb (mid levels of the atmosphere) covering the 4 corners of the USA (az/nm/co/ut), with the edge of the ridge extending from Virginia to Manitoba. It is possible that the smoke will loose density as it fans out from the source of the fires, however this is not a guarantee. 2023 was the last time we had such a large outbreak of highly dense smoke. I was working in Front Royal as an ecology field tech and we had a stop work order due to the hazardous AQI (150+ (40-50 ug/m3).  

Wildfire smoke tends to have the interesting effect of tempering outdoor temps and suppressing thunderstorm development. 

Kudos: 3

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It's also surprising to me that they don't just take GOES 16 (former Goes EAST) which is still in orbit right near 19, and has no problems, out of parking mode for imagery. It would only take a few minutes. 🤡

The SWPC noaa guys show no overt signs of geomagnetic/xray/cosmic ray problems externally or in the geosphere right now... Really makes ya think!


Same old shit different day.



https://vibes3.funnyjunk.com/comments/+_9e4d32ee548cb12ab6cdf963a5627e86.mp4


Won't embed my video for some reason...

by X; ; Report

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VERY Convienient time for GOES19 to go into safe mode and stop producing any data huh... 🤡

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☹️

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It smells like shit here in northern Michigan but at least it kept the sun from coming out today which kept it much cooler outside than yesterday! 



What does it actually smell like?

by X; ; Report

Wood and burnt plastic. 😬

by SafeInSanity; ; Report

Thanks

by X; ; Report