Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Smoke has caused temperature forecasts to go crazy

cliffmass.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 332 posts

Re: Smoke has caused temperature forecasts to go crazy

#81

Post by AnonsLadder »

tyleo wrote: post #2

I’m in the midsts of this right now and it’s depressing. I spent yesterday morning with a sore throat and itchy eyes and most of the afternoon hopelessly driving hours away for a box fan and furnace filter (I finally found them). All the while I should have been working. Some of my coworkers have complained of week-long headaches. If anyone else is suffering from this: you are not alone.

Same here in central Oregon, it's very bad and literally no viz. I almost can't see past my neighbor's house...

Re: Smoke has caused temperature forecasts to go crazy

#82

Post by gdubs »

dthal wrote: post #29

This blog post went up on Saturday, September 12. It says: >> MUCH cleaner air will push in by 4 PM Sunday over the coastal zone and will just reach Seattle late in the afternoon >> By 1 AM Monday, air quality will be hugely better in western Washington As of now (Tuesday) there is no sign of clearing. Here in Seattle we are still in the "very unhealthy" range for AQI.

We’re in the Willamette valley and originally the smoke was supposed to let up last Thursday. That quickly passed and then it was Saturday night. Instead, we got dense, stagnant fog and continued off-the-charts air quality index numbers. But all the while, talk of how the rain was coming today. Well, not looking like rain today.

This has been a slog. Yet only a few towns over, there has been utter devastation from the fires. So we’re incredibly fortunate.

The headaches and scratchy throat have been pretty non-stop but mainly it’s the kids that have me concerned — the indoor air quality isn’t great, but have doing my best to keep the air from getting too bad. (Furnace filter / air purifier / taping the windows / etc).

Re: Smoke has caused temperature forecasts to go crazy

#83

Post by dghughes »

I'm in southeastern Canada years ago smoke from Quebec forest fires made the sky red. The soil where I am from is also red. It was like living on Mars. The fun ends quickly when your throat gets scratchy and there is no where you can go to escape it the air in your house has to come from outside too.

I'm not looking forward to any smoke now my dad has COPD, IPF, is on oxygen, and he's elderly. If we get any amount of smoke here it will be the end of him. It's hard enough trying to keep him from contracting SARS-Cov-2 and developing covid-19.

Re: Smoke has caused temperature forecasts to go crazy

#84

Post by zwieback »

gdubs wrote: post #72
tyleo wrote: post #2

I’m in the midsts of this right now and it’s depressing. I spent yesterday morning with a sore throat and itchy eyes and most of the afternoon hopelessly driving hours away for a box fan and furnace filter (I finally found them). All the while I should have been working. Some of my coworkers have complained of week-long headaches. If anyone else is suffering from this: you are not alone.

Willamette Valley here, and I feel you. Was really investing a lot of my optimism in the rain that was talked about for today, for over a week now — which doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen. This has been a long, long week.

When I stepped out of my house last night and saw clouds and a little bit of blue I was ridiculously happy. None of the predicted wind or rain has shown up so far, I wonder if the fires are blocking the normal wind from the ocean.

Re: Smoke has caused temperature forecasts to go crazy

#85

Post by cyphar »

Verdex wrote: post #71
CydeWeys wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? What makes combustion particulates from coal substantially worse than combustion particulates from wood?

Coal can have radioactive materials inside of it. There's radioactive carbon (c14) and it looks like also a bunch of more concerning materials. [] - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-... .

Regarding carbon-14, there is so little of it that it makes no sense to even think about it (about 1 in 10^12 atoms). In addition, all biological matter (including you and the food you eat) has carbon-14 present in it -- that's the basic principle behind carbon dating. In fact, ash from wood burning would probably have more carbon-14 if anything.

But yes, the article you linked talks about trace amounts of uranium and other materials that actually could be harmful.

Re: Smoke has caused temperature forecasts to go crazy

#86

Post by xxpor »

bamboozled wrote: post #76
Scarblac wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in the Netherlands it is currently 32 degrees C. This is the latest date we have had 30+ temperatures since measurements began in 1901. And ten years from now we'll remember this as cool.

I remember visiting Amsterdam in a heatwave, maybe 2016, and they were hosing the canal bridges off to cool them so they'd close properly. Apparently they'd expanded from the heat more than they were designed to cope with.

That happens in Seattle too. I'm surprised the metal expands that much myself.

Re: Smoke has caused temperature forecasts to go crazy

#87

Post by fanatic2pope »

cbsks wrote: post #37
cmendel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, are you advocating for continuing to follow a blog that is known to give misinformation because you like the writing style? Because if that is the case I would highly recommend changing your mind, the Bayesian prior has changed and unfortunately it is permanent.

Just because he gives misleading social commentary, doesn’t mean that his meteorological information is any less accurate.

How do you know his meteorological information is accurate?

Re: Smoke has caused temperature forecasts to go crazy

#88

Post by woah »

dghughes wrote: post #83

I'm in southeastern Canada years ago smoke from Quebec forest fires made the sky red. The soil where I am from is also red. It was like living on Mars. The fun ends quickly when your throat gets scratchy and there is no where you can go to escape it the air in your house has to come from outside too. I'm not looking forward to any smoke now my dad has COPD, IPF, is on oxygen, and he's elderly. If we get any amount of…

Get an air filter

Re: Smoke has caused temperature forecasts to go crazy

#89

Post by spqr0a1 »

Verdex wrote: post #71
CydeWeys wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? What makes combustion particulates from coal substantially worse than combustion particulates from wood?

Coal can have radioactive materials inside of it. There's radioactive carbon (c14) and it looks like also a bunch of more concerning materials. [] - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-... .

The half life of C-14 is much shorter than geologic formation time for coal. Coal's radioactivity is due to primordial nuclides and their decay chains.

Re: Smoke has caused temperature forecasts to go crazy

#90

Post by mensetmanusman »

yowlingcat wrote: post #11

If you're like me and you wondered if the fires raging on the west coast could benefit from the controlled burn approach Australia has historically used to control bushfires, the answer seems to be a disappointing no [1]. Any folks who know this better than me who can comment? > He adds that a particular feature of the recent fires in Australia is that they have spread across the crown or top part of the forest - so…

Conservation of energy indicates that you can ‘flatten the curve’ of forest fires by doing more burns more frequently that are less intense.
Post reply on HN