{"id":246215,"date":"2026-07-17T22:41:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T22:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/246215\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T22:41:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T22:41:21","slug":"reprieve-from-wildfire-smoke-expected-for-weekend-in-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/246215\/","title":{"rendered":"Reprieve from wildfire smoke expected for weekend in Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This story is part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/whyy-news-climate-desk\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WHYY News Climate Desk<\/a>, bringing you news and solutions for our changing region.\n<\/p>\n<p>From the Poconos to the Jersey Shore to the mouth of the Delaware Bay, what do you want to know about climate change? What would you like us to cover? <a href=\"#Section1\">Get in touch<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>The Philadelphia region could get a reprieve from unhealthy levels of air pollution this weekend as smoke from hundreds of wildfires in Canada and northern Minnesota is expected to make its way out of the area.\n<\/p>\n<p>Meteorologists say Saturday morning rain will cleanse the atmosphere, and a change in wind direction will push the bad air out of the region by Sunday.\n  <\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou may notice a little bit of an improvement as today goes on, but it will be minimal,\u201d said Jon Nese, a meteorologist and teaching professor at Pennsylvania State University. \u201cThe big change comes starting tomorrow morning. You will notice, and it will happen rather quickly, that the pollution will begin to move off to the north.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has issued a Code Orange Air Quality Alert for Philadelphia and its surrounding counties on Saturday, meaning the air quality will be acceptable for most people. Sensitive groups such as those with asthma could still be impacted by particulate matter. The rest of the state will experience more moderate air quality, according to the DEP.\n<\/p>\n<p>Air quality was at unhealthy levels on Friday, as the Philadelphia area was under a <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/philadelphia-pa-wildfire-smoke-code-red-canada\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Code Purple Alert<\/a>, meaning levels of particulate matter were \u201cvery unhealthy\u201d and threatened to impact everyone. Health officials urged residents to remain indoors and keep their windows closed.\n<\/p>\n<p>By the afternoon, near-real-time monitors showed that levels had fallen to the red range, meaning the air was \u201cunhealthy,\u201d and health risks remained for some people.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m hopeful that we will be out of the danger zone sometime on Saturday, but that\u2019s up to the wind, not me,\u201d said Philadelphia Health Commissioner Dr. Palak Raval-Nelson.\n<\/p>\n<p>As of Friday afternoon, the air quality index was hovering above 200.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you\u2019re breathing air with an air quality index of 200 for 24 hours, that would be equivalent to smoking six to seven cigarettes,\u201d Nese said.\n<\/p>\n<p>Air quality index levels can vary by zip code and change throughout the day. People are encouraged to check the air quality in their neighborhood at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.airnow.gov\/?\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AirNow<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>People with health conditions, including respiratory and cardiovascular problems, as well as children and the elderly should take extra precautions, health experts said.\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story is part of the WHYY News Climate Desk, bringing you news and solutions for our changing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,5206],"class_list":["post-246215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-whyy-news-climate-desk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}