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Smoke fills the valley

A heavy blanket of smoke sits in the Okanagan Valley Tuesday carried in by wind from fires in B.C., Washington and California.

Wind pushed the heavy smoke, especially from the Harrison Lake fire, into the valley Monday evening and Tuesday morning with many Okanagan residents waking up to a campfire smell.

“We had some pretty strong winds yesterday afternoon which carried a lot of that smoke eastwards and towards the Okanagan,” says Environment Canada meteorologist Matt MacDonald.

“As we see every night, we get these inversions as the sun goes down, temperatures cool off and mixing of the air masses overnight. So, a lot of that smoke thickened and filled the valley overnight.”

While MacDonald says most of the smoke around the Okanagan is from the Harrison Lake fire, plumes of smoke are also heading north from fires south of the border.

“A lot smoke is coming from different directions, but likely we are going to see a change here in the weather pattern over the next few days.”

MacDonald says a trough of low pressure will swing down from the northwest Wednesday afternoon into Thursday morning.

“Initially there may be a few lightning strikes associated with that trough, definitely a chance of thunderstorms tomorrow afternoon, but then come Thursday we are expecting some pretty good rain – upwards of 10 mm for the Okanagan,” says MacDonald.

“Which after such a dry start to the summer it is more than welcome at this point.”

MacDonald says Thursday will feel more like an October day than a hot day in August.

“The high on Thursday is only of 20 C and rainy throughout the day, which will kind of feel like a fall day on Thursday.”

While it is expected to pour on Thursday, MacDonald says the new weather pattern isn't expected to cause any major problems.

“I don’t think this trough will be too deeply convective, meaning I don't think there will be really severe thunderstorms, there will be what we call garden variety thunderstorms. So, non severe but locally moderate downpours, gusty winds and some lightning,” says MacDonald.

“Thursday will be just showers without any lightning.”

The rain won't be here for long though as by the weekend weather conditions will improve once again.

“There are better weather patterns on tap for next weekend, the temperatures will rebound in to the high twenties, low thirties,” say MacDonald.



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