Smoke from wildfires in northwestern Ontario is choking the sky over southern Ontario including Windsor-Essex.
Environment Canada is continuing its orange air quality warning which may last until Friday.
Common symptoms of smoke inhalation include throat irritation, headache and cough and residents are asked to limit time outdoors, reschedule outdoor activities and close windows when indoors.
Senior Climatologist David Phillips told AM800’s The Shift with guest host Kyle Horner, it’s like a scene from a Stephen King novel.
“It’s really eerie and I’ve been in it in Barrie north of Toronto and you smell like a campfire and that’s really toxic stuff. When you look at the smoke from a campfire, it’s not just like roasting your weenies on a campfire, my gosh, this is benzene, carbon monoxide and all kinds of toxic chemicals.”
Phillips adds the smoke should move out by Friday. “I think I’d rather be in the scorching sun in Windsor than I would under this smoke and haze that is engulfing North America. People are turning their lights on, I mean, it really looks apocalyptic in a way but hey, it’s short lived and will be over by a couple of days,” he says.
Phillips also says there’s only two ways to get rid of the smoke.
“You can put out the fires, which is probably not going to happen until the fall. Also, you can change the wind direction so that’s essentially this high pressure area that’s causing you the heat is also causing the smoke to come from high levels in the atmosphere right above Windsor I mean 6-8 kilometres and bring it down to the ground.”
As for the heat, Phillips says so far this summer, Windsor-Essex has had 17 days above 30 degrees Celsius, normally there would be 11.
He adds the temperature will drop drastically at the beginning of next week with a high on Tuesday of 22C.
-With files from AM800’s The Shift