COLORADO SPRINGS — Air quality in Colorado is terrible right now. It is caused by smoke from the massive Dixie Fire in Northern California. The fires nearly a thousand miles to the west
"We have a west jet stream bringing all that smoke in and it’s such a big amount of fire out there, it's really clogging us up," said News 5 Meteorologist, Sam Schreier.
The jet stream often moves with a curve depending on air pressure highs and lows. "We just happen to have a little cooler air coming out of Canada,” said Schreier, “That's just shoving the air right through Colorado." Computer images show the jet stream currently traveling in a nearly straight-line west to east. The direction intersects the smoke it is carrying with several Colorado cities and town. A couple of weather changes would help clear the smoke. “One of them, is you can rain some of it out. The thunderstorm will drag it down with the rain,” said Schreier.
A change of air pressure from the south would add a curve to the jet stream. Schreier said, "That high pressure builds back, and we should throw more smoke up north of the state." A pressure change is possible later in the week.
For now, there is an air quality health warning across much of Colorado.
