Smoke blankets the East Bay
Forecasters say dirty air won't abate anytime soon
The sun glowed slightly orange as it rose above the Bay Area on Friday, blocked by a thick haze of smoke high in the atmosphere and large amounts of pollution near the surface.
A little déjà vu maybe? “The way the whole pattern is developing, it reminds me of mid- September,” National Weather Service meteorologist Brian Garcia said. “It took a solid week for that smoke to be cleared out once it settled in, and it looks like we’re heading in the same direction now.”
It has not been a smooth ride. Temperatures once again were expected to soar into the 90s and possibly 100s in the farthest inland East Bay areas and lowest North Bay valleys — smoke permitting — and winds were expected stay strong enough through the night that the weather service extended a red-f lag wire warning until 6 a.m. Saturday.
A Spare the Air alert remained in effect through Tuesday, too, with Friday marking the sixth straight day wood-burning was illegal, according to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. The district issued 30 consecutive such days earlier this year.
“We just have a bunch of smoke lingering in the area,” Garcia said. “We’ll potentially see some movement in the low surface area (Friday), but we’re going to continue to transport smoke this way from fires up north, and that will hover up high. As soon as the winds start to die — which we expect to happen tonight through most of the region and overnight in the valleys — we’re gonna see that smoke drop down again.”
In areas of the region Friday morning, the district’s official air- quality readings already were terrible. In Napa, the AQI was 216 at 6 a.m., considered very unhealthy for everyone. Livermore (178), Concord (177), Pleasanton (175), East Oakland (174), San Jose (168), Gilroy (157), San Pablo (155) and Vallejo (153) all had readings considered unhealthy for everyone.
The best air in the region was in Sebastopol, where the AQI was 137 at 6 a.m. That figure is considered unhealthy for anyone with breathing problems. The air was not moderately unhealthy anywhere.
Forecasters said smoke was the reason heat records did not fall on Thursday. The hottest temperature in the region was 97 degrees, which was felt in Antioch, Concord and Walnut Creek. The thermometer got up to 93 in San Jose, and 88 in Oakland, San Francisco and Pacifica.
“There was so much smoke cover that temperatures were down about 5-10 degrees from the forecast,” Garcia said.
The same will apply Friday, Garcia said, and temperatures are forecast to hit the high 90s in the hottest spot and in the high 80s closer to the coast.
“It’s very warm,” Garcia said. “Very dry.”
A chance does exist that it could get wet relatively soon. Forecast models show a cold front potentially could move into the region by Oct. 11, possibly producing “a few-tenths of inches of rain,” Garcia said.
Climate expert Daniel Swain said on his Twitter feed that it’s too early to tell what will happen with that pattern, but one event that could emerge is dry lightning. A similar even in midAugust sparked wildfires throughout the state, setting into motion more than a month of nearly uninterrupted bad air.
“Right now, everything from a ‘ total bust’ to dry lightning event to fire season-ending event are potentially on the table,” Swain wrote.