From a lack of snow in the Winter to surprisingly chilly mornings in June, there’s no doubt that 2023’s weather so far has been weird in Connecticut. Well, it just got even weirder.

Recently, smoke from wildfires in Canada has swept into Connecticut and neighboring states, thrusting the region into interesting circumstances relating to weather. It happened twice in the month of May this year. The first time it happened was around May 9 due to wildfires in the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. The smoke was seen dimming the skies of Hartford, providing for “vivid sunrises and sunsets,” according to FOX 61.

So, how did smoke from western Canada end up in the eastern United States? You can thank the jet stream, the layer of strong winds high up in the atmosphere. These winds, traveling from west to east across the North American continent, helped the smoke make its way to the Nutmeg State. The path the smoke took was over the Arctic Circle, then through Ontario and Quebec, before arriving in New England. That journey is over 3,500 miles long. However, when it arrived, the smoke’s effects were minimal because it was so high in the atmosphere, but it did have some impacts because smoke like that was able to dim the sun.

This wasn’t the only time that Canadian smoke invaded Connecticut in the month of May; another air quality problem occurred from late May to late last week due to wildfires all across Canada. Last week, the smoke and haze were at its worst, traveling close to the ground unlike the early May smoke. The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and the National Weather Service have jointly issued Air Quality Alerts continuously last week. The situation was so bad, in fact, that a reporter from The Weather Channel mentioned that New York City’s air quality, which was at hazardous levels, was “the unhealthiest air in all of the world” at that time, backed up by surreal images of Manhattan blanketed in an orange troposphere.

The smoke crisis has affected every individual in the northeastern United States. We all, personally, saw the pink sun in the sky, which was both an awesome but creepy experience. The fog-like smoke has added an unusual element to the scenery of Easton, which was interesting.

Last Tuesday night, the sky was a weird yellowish color, accompanied by a few rumbles of thunder but no rain. Some of us were even wearing masks on Wednesday and Thursday; a tradition we all thought would be over after the dissipation of the COVID-19 Pandemic. School authorities, recognizing the dangerousness of the air, prohibited teachers from taking their classes outdoors here at HKMS. So, yeah, we’ve all been affected by this.

My personal experience? When the situation began two weeks ago, Newspaper Club was holding its end-of-year celebration. I noticed that if I looked at the big HKMS field from afar, it looked hazy and foggy. I thought nothing of it at first, believing it was normal weather for this time of year, until I got home and found out it was smoke from Canadian wildfires. But the situation never seemed hazardous to me; in fact, P.E. classes were taken outside last week despite an air quality alert, so no one really knew how bad this would get. I even thought that the pink sun was an astronomical event, and not connected to the smoke situation. Funnily enough, I began writing this article before last Wednesday, when the air became dangerous to breathe, and initially posed this as a fun little factoid, but, oh boy, how wrong I was. I even took some photos and videos of the Easton outdoors and newscasts of the situation. They can be found here.

If you think you won’t be affected by the bad air quality, think again. The air quality in Easton was marked as “hazardous” (at a level of around 300) by the Environmental Protection Agency, which means everyone, no matter what your pre-existing medical conditions are. The Weather Channel said that “anything over 100 can start causing issues for people more at risk, like those with asthma or lung disease, children and the elderly.” Wildfire smoke carries a harmful pollutant named particle matter (PM 2.5), which, concerningly, we’re breathing in whenever we go outside, causing it to go into our lungs and bloodstream. Coughing, shortness of breath, and increased heart rate can all affect relatively healthy people. However, it can also aggravate chronic heart and lung diseases, make the risk of a stroke or heart attack go up, harm vital organs, and shorten somebody’s lifespan.

(Photo credits: ABC News, New York Post - Photos are of New York City on June 7, 2023. The Works Cited and homepage photos were taken by Charles Rabinowitz.)