Large forest fires across central Quebec east of James Bay continue to burn in that region. The fires started from thunderstorms moving through the area last Tuesday, July 2. Reports have indicated that the Fire has consumed 375 square miles of forest.**
Man, is it freaky! The sky is orange. The sun is out, but it’s dark, because the sun can’t cut through the haze. I noticed last night around sunset that everything looked kinda “off”–hazy, orange-ish.
But today you can definitely tell. It’s almost like when we have “tornado weather” (very rare here in New England, but we do occasionally have tornado warnings) except then, the sky looks pea soup green and now it’s orange. A weird orange. A nuclear apocalypse orange.
I’m glad I checked the National Weather Service’s page, cuz I’d be hella freaked out right now. It’s eerie! We can’t smell the smoke here in RI, but I’ve heard reports from Maine that it does vaguely smell like forest fire.
Anyone else experiencing this? Any Quebecois Dopers being affected by the fires? What a strange weather year it’s been so far.
Heh, well, we do live in Bizarroland. But at least I know why the sky is orange. It was quite unsettling until I asked around and found out about the fires!
It’s really quite commonplace in the NWT - that cold place I lived in for too long. It’s disconcerting the first time you see it, though. I remember the last year I lived up there during a fire season, areas the size of Texas were on fire.
Wow, since I posted, the orange-ness has gone away. It’s still very hazy. It looks like it should be 98 degrees with like 70% humidity outside, but it’s a very comfy 72 degrees right now.
It’s still dark, kind of like when we have an eclipse, cuz the sun is there, it’s just not making it through the haze.
At least the orange is gone. That was just too freaky for me!
It is still yellow up here in Montréal. It was orange when I woke up about an hour ago, I was sure there was bad weather on its way. On another note, Québec Dopers might be on and offline while it is going on. Last Friday, Hydro-Québec cut power to half a million households because the fires where too close to powerlines, so it might have to be repeated.
Welcome to the Canadian boreal forest summer sunset. It’s there in the morning before you rise, and is still there in the late evenng when you go to bed.
Hell, it’s getting all the way down to Philadelphia. Last night, the sun was blotted enough that it looked like a big orange dot in the sky. Today, we’re getting enough sunlight to cast shadows, but there’s still a general gray haze over everything.
As we were driving up to CT from MD yesterday evening, I noticed how incredibly hazy it got around NY, and how strange that it didn’t really feel that muggy. Then this morning, I woke to a bizzare orange sky, and an oh-so-faint smell of smoke. I thought there might be a fire somewhere, but I didn’t imagine it was all the way in Canada!
(grumble…we go to all the trouble to request a non-smoking state and then those rude people in the next country over spoil it all…oughta complain to the managment)
It’s still pretty orange here, in south-central Connecticut.
It started here in Reading PA yesterday afternoon. Very hazy and kind of yellowish color. And the smell! It stills smells smokey, but not as much as yesterday. Still hazy too.
It’s bizarre for it to be this hazy and not have it be ungodly humid.
Fortunately Rasa, the area is mostly unpopulated. The main concern we have about this fire is how it will affect power transmission from the James Bay dams.
Here everything just turned very yellow in the last 10 minutes or so. Early this morning it was orange, and has just been gray for most of the day. Very different.
Yup, we appear to have progressed from orangey to yellowey now here in RI as well. I was talking to a friend on the other side of the country and he said “How’s the weather there?” I said “Yellow.” Cuz, well, it is!
In central MD today, the sky was hazy, almost milky. Imagine my surprise when I looked at weather.com and found out that it was a result of fires in Canada!