Wildfire smoke blemishing the Philly region’s clear skies expected to last through the weekend

It appears that the milky haze will persist into Sunday. No adverse health impacts are expected.

Western wildfire smoke makes for a vivid sunset last year at this time.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer

Updated Sept. 17, 2022, 3:25 p.m. ET

Published Sept. 16, 2022, 3:00 p.m. ET

The milky veil that for the last two days has obscured those erstwhile beautifully blue skies in much of the Philadelphia region is the fallout from the Western wildfires, and it is expected to linger into Sunday.

“It looks like there’s some more heading our way,” Dean Iovino, a lead meteorologist at the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly, said Saturday afternoon as some plain, old clouds were adding to the sky congestion.

Wildfire smoke continued to cover much of the Mid-Atlantic region on Saturday, including all of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, according to the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, with the heaviest concentrations atop the Philadelphia region.

“It’s been streaming across the country the last few days,” said Iovino colleague Matt Brudy.

Any adverse health impacts were unlikely, said Tom Kines, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc.; air quality was reported to be “good” on Friday and Saturday in Philly.

It was, however, having aesthetic effects around here, blotting out what likely would have been splendidly blue skies Friday and Saturday.

“It has the appearance of a hot and humid hazy sunshine day in the middle of the summer,” said Kines.

That may seem a petty observation given what some people out West have endured.

While multiple fires have been burning, the likely sources of what’s overhead in Philly are the Northern Rockies and western Canada, Kines said Friday. Given the often-chaotic flows in the upper atmosphere, it would be impossible to pinpoint the precise origin, he added.

California’s Mosquito Fire, involving nearly 71,000 acres, was 21% contained, the state said Saturday. So far this year, wildfires have been blamed for at least nine deaths in California.

In addition to multiple other California fires, the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center reported 10 “large” fires in progress in Washington state and Oregon.

Save for the smoke, the last weekend of the astronomical summer around here should continue to be one to savor, with sun, temperatures in the 80s, negligible winds, and virtually no chance of anything falling from the sky.