The air smelled as bad as it looked on Thursday in Western Pennsylvania.
And the haze is far from over.
Andrew Kienzle, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Moon, said air quality is expected to worsen into Thursday night.
The smoke is drifting from wildfires burning across northern Minnesota and western Ontario, Canada.
“I noticed the smoke around 11 this morning,” said Michael Spanos, 40, who runs Gus & YiaYia’s ice ball stand on Pittsburgh’s North Side. ” We opened the shaved ice stand around noon, and you can just look and see the haze in the air. I haven’t had any trouble breathing, but customers have mentioned they’ve been having issues. They say they can feel it in their throats, like a burning sensation when they breathe.”
Customer Chuck Pollard, 66, remarked: “Ain’t nothing we can do about it.”
As of now, the Pittsburgh region is around 100 on the Environmental Protection Agency scale, and it’s expected to climb into the 200 to 300 range for the “latter portions of this afternoon or evening,” he said, with those conditions continuing overnight.
The Air Quality Index’s “unhealthy” category ranges from 151 to 200, meaning “members of the general public may experience health effects,” and the “very unhealthy” category is 201 to 300.
“(It’s) been kind of flowing southeast toward us over the last couple of days, but it’s really dropping down on the Pittsburgh grid,” Kienzle said. “We are expecting it to improve, but it will be at least 36 hours before we see that meaningful improvement.”
Here is an image showing the projected concentration of smoke across the region through Friday. pic.twitter.com/CaSuFO9ow6
— NWS Pittsburgh (@NWSPittsburgh) July 16, 2026
For comparison, the Air Quality Index topped 300 across parts of Western Pennsylvania during the June 2023 smoke event caused by wildfires in Quebec, according to the National Weather Service data.
“Anything above 300 becomes hazardous on that scale,” Kienzle said.
In Cleveland on Thursday afternoon, he said there’s “pretty shockingly bad air quality” over 500 on the scale. Downtown Cleveland is at 596 as of 2:30 p.m., and other areas are up to as high as 609.
“Some of the areas across the Great Lakes are worse now than the air quality was in 2023 because that was more focused on (the) eastern seaboard,” Kienzle said.
Though Pittsburgh hasn’t reached the “very unhealthy” category yet, he advised locals to “know your sensitivity to it,” as it can affect those with respiratory conditions such as asthma more severely.
Bob Kassanitsh 65, was concerned as he finished some shaved ice at Gus & YiaYia’s/
“It sucks,” he said. “Just the smell, my eyes feel funny like they’re getting swollen.”
Then, headed to his car for shelter.
“I’m not feeling too good,” Kassantish said.
Kienzle said it looks like the smoke will linger through Friday morning at least, with some into the afternoon and then “gradual improvement as we get into Friday evening.” He expects smoke to largely move northeast by sunrise on Saturday.
Local residents should pay attention to the Allegheny and Pennsylvania departments of environmental protection, meteorologists said, as they will be monitoring air quality systems and issuing air quality alerts.
The site AirNow.gov can also be a resource to personally monitor.