When we arrived onto the playa the skies were clear. The next day the wildfire smoke drifted in from the west. I could no longer see the mountains encircling the dry lake we were camped on. Two days after we left Sisters I received a “severe air quality” alert for Sisters. Even as we left I was already seeing an orange moon at night and a filtered sun during the day. I was able to look directly at the sun. Later after receiving that alert I learned that Oregon had followed the cue from California and all National Forests were closed. I wondered if anyone would drive through where we were at Camp Hunker Down looking for those I knew who were camped deep into the forest.
Below is a screenshot of an article describing the smoke drifting all the way east to Michigan.
Sisters is about where the X is. We currently are where the O is. My plan when we leave The Black Rock will be driving down the through Nevada just to the right of the red line.
Update: Conditions have become worse, still nothing like what others to the west are dealing with. Still my plan to drive south would take us right into a travelers advisory area of Nevada where visibility is reduced to less than a mile. Hopefully later this week there will be a wind shift.
Monday was the worst with watery burning eyes and irritated breathing.
Nowhere to go for anything better.
4 comments:
Take care and hopefully you will get out of the area
Stay safe! Can't you head a bit more east? Or is it colder there?
Let's hope that wind blows it all away. Seems like every couple of years the "new normal" gets a lot more ugly.
That smoke is covering a huge area, it seems there's nowhere to go to get away from it.
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