A thick haze of smoke covered Anchorage and much of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Thursday morning.
The smoke, from both the Tyonek and Funny River wildfires, was heavy over Anchorage in the early hours, although a light breeze helped to push the smoke away by afternoon.
But Christian Cassell, with the National Weather Service’s Anchorage office, says winds now helping to clear smoke away from the city, are about to change
“The next 24 hours or so through, let’s say, [Friday] afternoon are looking pretty good, with north winds that’ll gust 20-25 miles per hour. So we’re looking at the smoke being pushed off to the south of Anchorage,” Cassell said. “As we get into [Friday], however, the wind is gonna start reversing again and it’s going to start coming out of the south, and that’s gonna start pushing the smoke up towards Anchorage’s way again. And, unfortunately, it looks like we’re gonna be in that pattern through the weekend.”
Cassell says the worst smoke conditions are generally in the late night and earliest morning hours, because of an inversion created when the ground cools faster than the air above it.
APTI Reporter-Producer Ellen Lockyer started her radio career in the late 1980s, after a stint at bush Alaska weekly newspapers, the Copper Valley Views and the Cordova Times. When the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound, Valdez Public Radio station KCHU needed a reporter, and Ellen picked up the microphone.
Since then, she has literally traveled the length of the state, from Attu to Eagle and from Barrow to Juneau, covering Alaska stories on the ground for the AK show, Alaska News Nightly, the Alaska Morning News and for Anchorage public radio station, KSKA
elockyer (at) alaskapublic (dot) org | 907.550.8446 | About Ellen
