Unsettling timelapse shows wildfire smoke turning NYC orange

It looks like an apocalyptic movie. But it's real.

New York's statewide weather network, which is operated by the University at Albany, captured a stunning timelapse of thick wildfire smoke from Canada moving into New York City on June 7. At 10 a.m., skies are a bit hazy, but blue. By 2 p.m., it's an eerie orange world.

Take a look at the NYS Mesonet footage:

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Meteorologists watched satellite footage of weather systems propelling this northern smoke toward New York City. It soon hit. And it's extreme.

"Current wildfire smoke event in NYC is off the charts relative to anything in past two decades," tweeted Stanford professor Marshall Burke, who researches wildfire impacts on people and society. Burke included the chart below:

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The polluted air is as terrible as it looks. New York governor Kathy Hochul's Twitter account said that "extremely unhealthy air quality" caused the state to extend its unhealthy air quality advisory another day.

"If you can stay indoors, stay indoors," the account tweeted.

And if you can't stay indoors, wear an effective mask, like an N95 (also, as you know, effective during pandemics caused by a certain respiratory virus).

Fire-prone Canadian forests, the source of the smoke, are having one of their worst fire years on record. Though generally wildfires can be normal and healthy parts of an ecosystem, today's fires can burn into unnatural infernos, producing unhealthy smoke that adversely impacts people's health hundreds of miles away. Different regions, at different times of year, will have a variety of influences stoking flames. Yet the continually warming atmosphere, which turns vegetation into profoundly parched fuel, is often a significant contributor in extreme fires, as are overgrown and mismanaged forests, invasive plants, and other factors.

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In some cases, the thick fire will stoke such an eerie orange scene. The orange color happens when smoke particles manipulate the sunlight traveling through the smoke. When thick enough, these particles scatter blue light (a shorter light wavelength), but yellowish-orange light (which travels in longer wavelengths) slips through the smoke, making orange skies.

Stay safe out there, everyone.