[zephyr]

I am looking for a hike out of the air stagnation zone for tomorrow. When I look at some places in the Central Cascades (like Lake Ingalls) I see this weather and this warning. So I think the Teanaways, Lake Wenatchee and Icicle Canyon area are affected. But some places further north seem to be okay. Does anyone have a link to a good map showing where this particular zone is? I haven't been able to hike all season and tomorrow is my big opportunity to see some of the color out there. I guess I will have do drive as far north as the North Cascades. Suggestions or PM would be appreciated. Thanks, ~z

[coldrain108]

Go to the wet side of the cascades....clean air So the overnight temp drops to 47 degrees, and after a summer of smoke, smoke and more wood smoke people decide to start burning wood and polluting the air with....wood smoke. Why is every other house spewing wood smoke OK but when nature fills the air with wood smoke its catastrophic? It reeks of smoke much worse than it did this summer in my neighborhood right now. I have not even been tempted to turn on any heat but my neighbors are spewing smoke like its mid winter. What is the fascination with burning $#!+?

[Schenk]

FWIW: With air stagnation, and inversion, you can usually climb right out of the smoky layer which is generally confined to low lying areas and down in the valleys. I am no expert, so I would not hazard a guess how high you'll need to go to escape this weekend. Coldrain, I am with you! And most of those wood stove users don't know how to build a good, hot, smoke free, fire in those damn things.

[zephyr]

[Schenk]

Zephyr, I did edit my post. I can't say for certain how high you would need to go, but even over here in Wood Stove Country 4000-5000' usually does it. There are some folks on this forum well versed in all things meteorological, and they may have a better answer there.

[treeswarper]

Yup, it's kinda looking like a good day last August here. Besides wood stoves, you can burn outdoor stuff. I've done the latter but I tend to wait for a rainy day. I don't think many people have newer woodstoves here, which only spew visible smoke during the "getting it started" part. It did seem clearer up at Loup Loup Pass, so I'm guessing it is like a winter inversion. I went for a bike ride today up there. Added later: The air cleared up here this afternoon. There are a few clouds in the sky so it must be moving.

[gb]

There were two separate problems. The mountains were clear Wednesday/Thursday but by Friday afternoon smoke could be seen coming into the area with the position of an upper ridge over Washington. This was manifested as a sometimes thick haze which extended into mid elevations and peak top elevations. The high haze from smoke showed up on the HRRR smoke vertically integrated smoke column model as coming from SW Oregon and North Central Oregon. Checking Inciweb on Saturday, the Klondike fire, which is huge west of Rogue River, grew 5000 acres in just one day on Friday to reach 172,000 acres. There are a couple of other fires also in that part of Oregon. The haze was still a detriment, at least to photography, yesterday near Mt. Baker. I did not take a camera. Locally, there was also an inversion at low elevations that trapped activity-caused smog to become entrenched. With the weather system today (Tuesday) both of these problems will go away but will be replaced by mostly cloudy skies and rain on some days.....