Some of the worst air quality in the world can be found Tuesday in places such as Indonesia, Qatar, Cambodia — and Kansas.
The flow of Canadian wildfire smoke into the Midwest means that Kansas City, Kan., has the distinction of having the worst air quality in the United States.
According to IQAir, Code Orange air quality — considered unhealthy for sensitive groups — stretches across the Midwest, including Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma. Air quality alerts are in effect across northern Iowa.
Other U.S. cities under Code Orange conditions include Kansas City, Mo.; Lincoln and Omaha, Neb.; and Des Moines, according to IQAir.
The wildfire smoke is coming from western Canada, where, for a second year in a row, fire season is off to an active and early start. Hundreds of fires have burned across hundreds of thousands of acres in recent days. As the smoke spread southward and eastward Monday, parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin were under air quality alerts.
Last year, a relentless and record-breaking Canadian wildfire season fueled a summer of smoke in parts of the United States, bouts of haze exposing swaths of the country to noxious skies. But the smoke is not expected to spread eastward like it did last year — at least, not yet. Forecast models project that some smoke will linger over the central states for the next couple of days but slowly become more dispersed.
In Iowa, authorities warned residents to avoid prolonged or intense outdoor activities, especially those with respiratory or heart disease, children, teenagers, the elderly and outdoor workers.
The estimated Air Quality Index was 148 in Kansas City, close to the levels IQAir reported in Medan and Jakarta, Indonesia, and in Doha, Qatar — and worse than conditions in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and Delhi, India.
Wildfire smoke has been among the factors reversing decades of air quality improvements since adoption of air pollution controls under the Clean Air Act in the 1960s and 1970s. In recent years, a growing number of Americans have been living with unhealthy levels of air pollution, and the country has experienced record numbers of days with very unhealthy or hazardous air quality, according to a recent American Lung Association report.
Air pollution increases the risk of health problems including lung damage and cardiovascular disease, and causes premature deaths.
Source link : https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/05/14/kansas-city-air-quality-canada-wildfire-smoke/
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Publish date : 2024-05-14 03:00:00
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