You still can’t quite see the North Shore mountains from Richmond, but you can at least make out the condo buildings a few blocks away again.
Richmond’s air quality now only scores a six out of 10 on Environment Canada’s 10-point Air Quality Health Index, landing it a “moderate risk” qualification.
That’s down from 10 out of 10 on Monday, when winds shifted direction and blew smoke from wildfires burning in B.C.’s Interior to the coast, forming a thick haze over most of the Lower Mainland.
But now, a marine push is sending the smoke back to where it came from, said Environment Canada meteorologist Matt MacDonald.
“It feels good for us across the South Coast,” he told the Richmond News. “The entire South Coast was just locked in under this very stagnant air mass.”
That stagnant air mass kept a thick haze of wildfire smoke in place for days, and also allowed pollution to accumulate.
But now, a trough of cooler air from the Strait of Juan de Fuca has replaced that smoke with fog and clouds.
“Visually it doesn’t look that great, but from an air quality perspective it’s much, much better,” MacDonald said.
The marine air also brought markedly cooler temperatures. MacDonald says they’re expected to stick around for the foreseeable future.
“I think for all those people who have been dying to get outside and get some exercise—you’ve got the green light,” he said.
If Metro Vancouver sees more wildfire smoke, it will probably be from the fires burning on northern Vancouver Island. Those ones aren’t as big as the fires burning in the Interior, so MacDonald expects the worst of the smoky conditions are behind us.
For Thursday, though, an quality advisory was still in effect.
