If you looked at the sunset tonight, you may have noticed that the sun appeared to be redder than usual. The skies have also been somewhat murky in appearance. This is due to a large number of smoke particles drifting over the eastern half of the country from fires up in Canada. You can track the plumes of smoke at AirNow at https://fire.airnow.gov/. You can see the graphical plume depiction in addition to individual measurements by going to Settings (the little gear wheel in the menu) and turning on the NOAA Smoke Plumes.
At the same time, we are also experiencing Saharan dust moving into the region from the south. It’s not unusual for there to be extensive areas of this dust moving into the Southeast this time of year, and in fact the dust helps limit the development of tropical waves early in the Atlantic Tropical Season. But the combination of the Canadian smoke particles and the Saharan dust makes the air a little lower in quality as well as contributing to some changes in the way the atmosphere looks and makes the sun look too (and probably the moon). An example of one of the forecasts for the Saharan dust plume is shown below. You can read more about Saharan dust in my blog post at The Garden Professors at https://gardenprofessors.com/dust-in-the-wind/.
