The thick stench of smoke that enveloped New Jersey on Wednesday is expected to continue to improve Thursday and should be mostly gone by Friday, but residents are in for another day of dangerously bad air quality, weather forecaster say.
Conditions have already improved since the air quality index reached record worst levels on Wednesday afternoon and evening with forecasters are optimistic we’re headed in the right direction.
“My sense is that by tomorrow there’s little or no smoke,” Joe Slezak, a meteorologist with WeatherWorks, a Hackettstown-based private weather forecasting company told NJ Advance Media Thursday morning. “The air quality is not going to become pristine — we haven’t had pristine air quality for a quite a while. “
Still as lunchtime approaches Thursday, expect the smoke to further dissipate.
“As we get toward midday today, getting toward lunch, you’re probably talking about another appreciable difference in the smoke once the sun starts warming things up,” Slezak said. “The fact that the smoke is already thinner is going to help because instead of the sun being entirely blocked, we’re at least getting some sunlight through already.”
While the thinner smoke will make for less of a surreal scene than we saw Wednesday, forecasters still caution that the air quality still won’t be very good for much of Thursday,
“So there will be improvement,” Slezak said. “There was already significant improvement compared to (Wednesday) and then we’re going to see additional significant improvement today.”
Widespread air quality readings well above 200 remain across New Jersey on Thursday morning. Readings above from 100-200 are considered “unhealthy” with readings above 200 described as “very unhealthy.”
“We’re going from all-time record poor air quality, now it’s just unhealthy” Slezak said. “By this afternoon, it starts becoming more of a problem just for sensitive groups. The biggest improvement comes later tonight and tomorrow is a much, much better day.”
Multiple locations in Middlesex, Mercer, Camden, Atlantic and Cape May counties were also showing “hazardous” – the most extreme air quality index – conditions as of 9:45 a.m. on Thursday, according to fire.airnow.gov.
AccuWeather.com says the air in Philadelphia will no longer be hazardous by Thursday afternoon with significant improvement expected by Friday night. In New York City, hazardous air will exit by Thursday night with significant improvement expected on Friday, the private weather forecasting company says.
Slezak anticipates hazy conditions sticking around at least through the weekend as the plume of smoke shifts toward central and western Pennsylvania. He’s not overly concerned about a shift in the winds causing a repeat of the smoky scene that started Tuesday afternoon.
“There might be some haze in the sky, but it takes something pretty anomalous to get it to the surface,” he said.
The National Weather Service is in agreement with the WeatherWorks and AccuWeather.
The weather system that’s driving the great Canadian-American smoke out — a low-pressure system over Maine and Nova Scotia — “will probably be hanging around at least for the next few days,” U.S. National Weather Service meteorologist Bryan Ramsey said.
”Conditions are likely to remain unhealthy, at least until the wind direction changes or the fires get put out,” Ramsey said. “Since the fires are raging — they’re really large — they’re probably going to continue for weeks. But it’s really just going be all about the wind shift.”
Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Jeff Goldman may be reached at [email protected].