Last week, Idaho had mostly clear skies and acceptable air quality. But over the weekend, smoke from major West coast fires started to slink in.
"Basically went from a more favorable flow where we weren't getting the smoke to westerly flow, which brought all that smoke in from Oregon," said Bill Wojcik, a meteorologist from the National Weather Service in Boise.
High level smoke plumes from California are also flowing our direction. Air quality throughout the state has been heavily impacted. Much of northern Idaho is in the very unhealthy — even hazardous in some areas.
What’s worse, Wojcik said that the smoke could stick around for most of the week.
“We need just the good weather pattern change where we get some active wet systems coming off the Pacific," he said.
Wojcik said a low pressure system is expected on Friday, which could bring some rain and, hopefully, clearer skies.
But, he says until multiple systems start coming off the North Pacific to continually disperse bad air, Idahoans could see fire and smoke into fall.
Copyright 2020 Boise State Public Radio