Photo: Castanet webcams
Blue skies can be seen over Okanagan Lake from downtown Kelowna on Wednesday morning.
Okanagan residents are seeing the sky for the first time in many days, and the respite is expected to continue throughout the weekend.
Dozens of forest fires burning in the southern interior of BC have resulted in extremely poor air quality in much of the region. But from Tuesday this smoke began to partially dissipate.
“Many areas, including the Okanagan, have seen improvements since yesterday,” said Gail Roth, air quality meteorologist for Environment Canada.
“They have gone from very dangerous, extremely high levels to vastly improved levels, but some of the readings we are still seeing are in the moderate category.”
While the Okanagan Valley, the Thompson region and the Kootenays have been covered in smoke for the past week, unstable weather conditions are expected to bring some relief over the next few days.
“There are still a lot of fires in the areas, but at least it won’t burn in for the next few days,” said Roth. “It will be variable … there could be a few nights when it sinks back into the valleys and then clears itself out again.”
As of Wednesday morning, the Central Okanagan and Kamloops regions are four on the 10-point air quality health index, while the North Okanagan is seven. The entire southern interior of the country is still subject to a Smoky Skies Bulletin, which was issued on Wednesday morning.
“The fires haven’t stopped so we still have the emission source … it can be variable. And someone who is very close to the fire can also see extreme conditions, ”said Roth.
Temperatures are expected to cool slightly by the weekend, with a high of 22 ° C for Sunday and possible showers on Sunday and Monday. But the hot and dry conditions will return by the middle of next week.
“Looking ahead to next week, the uncertainty is still there, but there is a likelihood that we will return to these warm, dry and stable conditions … we will have to wait, but there is a possibility that smoke will return by the middle of next week”, said Roth.
The Kootenays remain badly hit by the smoke, although conditions should also brighten moderately over the weekend. The lower mainland also experienced some slightly smoky conditions earlier this week, but the sky there is now clear.
However, smoky conditions of various kinds are expected to remain in the interior of the country for the remainder of the summer.
“As we get further into August, the smoke has more and more trouble clearing the valley,” said Doug Lundquist, a meteorologist for Environment Canada.
“I don’t expect we’ll see a full cure for smoke until maybe September. We are on the long run, this is a bad fire weather season and I don’t see the end of it yet. “
