Canada’s wildfire smoke is finally leaving the NC Triangle. But will it return?

The return of seasonal winds out of the southwest should ease the hazy air that North Carolina experienced this week, said a National Weather Service meteorologist.

“We should be out of the woods early next week,” Andrew Kren, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Raleigh office, told The News & Observer.

North Carolina and the Triangle region have experienced a series of air quality warnings caused by smoke from wildfires burning in Canada.

Smoke and haze could remain in the Triangle on Saturday, but the National Weather Service expects conditions to improve later in the day as air starts to flow from the southwest. The haze should weaken, if not dissipate, overnight into Sunday.

While Kren expects the haze to clear up by early next week, he also warned that a shift in wind patterns could bring smoke to North Carolina yet again.

It is uncommon for North Carolina to experience smoke from Canada, Kren said in an email.

Winds from the west and southwest are typical in early June due to a high pressure system near Bermuda. But a low pressure system in the northeastern United States this week meant that winds came out of the north, bringing smoke from more than 400 wildfires burning in eastern Canada to the United States’ Atlantic seaboard.

Meteorologists from the N.C. Division of Air Quality agreed in a Friday afternoon forecast, saying the low pressure system should start to ease on Saturday. The DAQ team warned that particle pollution levels could remain at risky levels in some parts of the state on Saturday due to leftover wildfire smoke over the Ohio Valley making its way across the state.

Forecasters expect Code Yellow — or moderate — levels of pollution, although concentrations could rise to unsafe levels over some periods for people who are sensitive to pollution.

Winds are expected to continue blowing out of the southwest through Monday. Air quality is expected to remain good Monday, according to the DAQ forecast.

Kren could not say how unusual a situation this week’s wildfire smoke is for North Carolina, but noted that small amounts of smoke from wildfires in western Canada were detected in the state last summer.

Smoke carries particulate matter, including particles smaller than the width of a human hair, away from where the fire is burning.

“As the smoke gets transported away from its origin, its concentration will decrease with mixing with the underlying atmosphere,” Kren wrote in an email.

This story was produced in part with financial support from 1Earth Fund, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work.