Calgary breaks record for smokiest year

While the smoke Monday wasn’t enough to warrant another airquality advisory, Calgary did make history in breaking its all-time record number of smoky hours.

As of noon Monday, we broke the record number of smoky hours set last year at 315. Rolf Campbell runs the YYC Weather Records Twitter account, and has been collecting and sharing weather data from Environment Canada, such as the number of smoky hours in the city.

The records of smoke in Calgary go back to 1953. He also provided Postmedia with the number of smoky hours for other major cities in comparison to Calgary.

So far this year, Calgary has outpaced other cities, such as Kamloops which has seen 198 hours of smoke, Edmonton with 170, Winnipeg with 60, Victoria with 40 and Vancouver with 33.

It’s possible we could continue to surpass that record over the coming days, however, the fact that we’ve been downgraded to a haze may be a factor.

Alysa Pederson, meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said a cold front which moved in over the weekend has diffused the smoke from levels seen last week.

Thanks to that cold front, on Tuesday we can expect more of a haze in the city.

“When we’re talking about haze versus smoke, we’re usually talking about visibility,” said Pederson.

If visibility is 9.7 kilometres (six statute miles) or less, it’s generally called smoke. When the visibility is higher, “the smoke is typically more diffuse. … It’s still the same particulate matter that smoke is, but … we call it haze.”

However, there is a change in the weather pattern forecasted, which will likely bring more smoke to the area.

“Later this week, we are anticipating westerly winds through B.C.,” said Pederson. “That will bring in the smoke in again and (then) a cold front will come through late this week … through this weekend (and) hopefully clearly out the smoke.”

The widespread smoke has been blowing into the province thanks to the 550 fires burning across British Columbia.

Members of one B.C. Wildfire Service firefighting crew had a heartwarming end to their shift on Sunday after rescuing five puppies near Vernon.

The initial attack crew had just finished a shift working a fire in the Monashee Complex east of Kamloops when they spotted a group of puppies on the side of the road.

After determining there were no houses or properties nearby that the dogs could have wandered from, the B.C. Wildfire Service said the crew decided to scoop the dogs up and bring them with them. The dogs’ owner said Monday that the animals were about 500 metres from her home when the firefighters found them.