CLICK HERE if you are having a problem viewing the photos on a mobile device
Blue sky slowly peeked in amid the haze, initially small patches and then larger ones. Coastal fog appeared, then began to burn off slowly with the progression of the sun. A bit of mist even emerged, and it wasn’t ash.
After a record string of bad air days, at last, a bit or normalcy.
“It’s fairly nice, especially considering where we’ve been,” National Weather Service meteorologist Brayden Murdock said Wednesday. “All the signs are good.”
The most encouraging sign of all: An end to 30 straight Spare the Air days. Bay Area Air Quality Management District officials confirmed late Wednesday morning that there won’t be a 31st on Thursday.
“I think we’re all relieved to see this historic and unprecedented stretch of poor air quality finally come to an end,” air district spokesman Aaron Richardson said, while adding that expectations for long stretches of clean air may not be realistic as fires continue to rage through the state and the heart of wildfire season is only now starting.
The last time there wasn’t an alert was Aug. 17. The record 30 straight days of alerts obliterated the old mark of 14 consecutive alerts set during the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise and equals the number of Spare the Air days combined the previous four years. During the streak, the Bay Area was choked by smoky, ashy air, and endured an eerie day last week when smoke blown down from the fires and trapped in the marine layer cast an dark orange pall that kept street lamps glowing and forced drivers to turn on their headlights.
A Spare the Air advisory remained in effect. Wood-burning is discouraged but not illegal during an advisory.
The 1 p.m. air quality index reading by the district showed that only Pleasanton (53) had a reading above 50, likely from remnants of the Dolan Fire near Big Sur blowing north, according to the National Weather Service. Anything from 51-100 is considered moderately unhealthy.
The rest of the region was blanketed by good air. In West Oakland, the reading was 11 and in Redwood City it was 10. Areas in the North Bay such as Vallejo, San Rafael and Sebastopol all dipped below 10 at one point during the day, as did most areas of Oakland.
Anything below 50 is considered good air.
The cleansing to the region has come from a new low-pressure system moving down from the high Pacific Northwest, Murdock said. The flow of the system is starting to curl back up north as it gets closer to the coast.
“The system that is moving in is pushing the smoke to the north and to the east,” Murdock said. “It’s also pushing the smoke up into the higher levels of the atmosphere, and that’s why you’re seeing the better air closer to the ground.”
Up high, haze still hung as a barrier, but the weather service said it is becoming less thick and will continue to do so as the winds shift.
“Instead of that low pressure moving inland, it will stay near the coast, and we’ll see some winds start to shift a little bit from the north,” Murdock said.
That shift also could have another effect as the weekend approaches, he said. It could bring back into the Bay Area smoke from the August Complex wildfires in Mendocino and Humboldt counties and the North Complex wildfires in Plumas and Butte counties. Those fires have combined to burn over 1 million acres.
“We’re watching a northeasterly flow that could end up coming down from the north as the wind shifts,” Richardson said. “It looked a little stronger (Wednesday) but now it appears maybe to be a little lighter than was anticipated. But that’s what we’re watching.”
The new system is also cooling off the area and will keep temperatures in the 70s in the far inland areas and in the 60s nearer to the coast, Murdock said. It also brought a tiny bit of mist and precipitation Wednesday morning to areas of the South Bay and North Bay, according to residents there. None of it was measurable, according to the weather service.
