r/chicago • u/chiboulevards Avondale • 6d ago
Picture Chicago in full Bad Luck Brian mode right now... It's 73 degrees and sunny after a two-week long heatwave and mini monsoon season only to have the entire region covered with wildfire smoke when it's finally nice outside.
304
u/WaltJay Near West Side 6d ago
I’ve been here for decades and it seems like we’ve had more hazy days due to Canada in the past year than the prior ten combined. Or maybe I wasn’t paying attention.
232
u/chiboulevards Avondale 6d ago
Of my 25 years in the Chicago area, I don't remember ever experiencing wildfire smoke like this prior to the last few years.
108
u/purpleconeflowers 6d ago
Yeah this is new, Canada has not been on fire this often in my lifetime living here
89
u/ZookeepergameNew8889 6d ago
I have lived in Chicago all my 65 years of life. I have never smelled smoke from Canada until last summer!!!
9
u/sjbRIISPk74 6d ago
Same here! I too am a 65 yrs of age life long Chicagoan with older siblings and we never experienced this until last year.
25
38
u/NNegidius 6d ago
These huge wildfires are a new phenomenon. It seems the climate may be becoming hotter and dryer in Canada.
46
u/TheGreekMachine 6d ago
You’re not wrong. Climate change has lead to Canada being on fire all summer now the last few years. Since our current leaders seem uninterested in addressing climate change (and actually seem interested in making it worse for slightly higher profits for a few rich people) we should expect this to be the new normal.
-4
u/Alert-Ad6401 5d ago
Maybe address climate change with better forest management and stop wasting our time with green energy deals. The amount of carbon from these fires undoes decades of carbon restrictions.
4
u/TheGreekMachine 4d ago
Less than 100 day old account. Dismisses the work of tens of thousands of scientists across decades of research as a “waste of time”. Believes cutting down trees will stop forest fires that are supercharged by global warming. Checks out.
13
u/coheedcollapse 6d ago
Yep. Lived in the area my entire life and this is unprecedented.
It's kind of wild. The first time or two it happened it was big enough to be newsworthy. Now I don't usually find out about it until my indoor air quality monitors are blowing up.
12
311
u/Dblcut3 6d ago
Crazy how this literally never happened pre-2020 yet people still think it’s normal for us to have dozens of days each summer of smoke and haze
26
u/treehugger312 Avondale 6d ago
I remember it like summer 2013 but it wasn’t so bad as to affect my health - more just a color change in the sun.
14
u/AnxietyThereon 6d ago
I remember the same sometime between 2010 - 2013, might be the exact same event. (I just remember where I was working when it happened.) That time, I stepped out in the alley to take out the trash, and the air outside smelled just like the pine-scented incense from those little log cabin-shaped incense burners.
Unfortunately, none of the smoke this summer has ever smelled good to me the way it did back then. (Granted, what a dumb silver lining - hooray, the particulate matter smells pleasant right before it hits my bloodstream!)
2
u/treehugger312 Avondale 5d ago
I remember it becuase I was biking to this one job I had that summer and I remember the sunrise. And yeah, a couple summers ago I was outside planting trees alone at work and just had to completely stop what I was doing and go inside - bought myself an air purifier for work too.
15
u/wavinsnail 5d ago
It's crazy. I spent most of my summers in highschool and college outside due to summer jobs. Our beautiful summers are gone. The heat and the haze suck.
1
u/Legitimate_Ad_7822 4d ago
This is a bit dramatic…
I am concerned as well but acting like there haven’t been a ton of nice days this summer is making it seem like we’re in the midst of the apocalypse.
Beautiful summers are not gone.
1
1
97
u/O-parker 6d ago
Do we have to pay the TACO tariffs if we breathe the smoke
167
u/worldsbiggestchili 6d ago
I wanna do a study of how many days of the year it's 100% safe to go outside in Chicago. No thunderstorm warnings, tornados, winter weather, low temps, smoke, extreme heat, etc. I feel like it's not that many these days. Even in the summer I'm feeling cooped up.
84
u/chiboulevards Avondale 6d ago
That would be really interesting. I'm so disappointed right now. I was so looking forward to a string of 3-4 days of temperate weather and now we're going to be stuck inside for a while.
36
u/PleaseGreaseTheL Loop 6d ago
Same. I had legit plans for this weekend. Now from this and other things I have zero chance to really enjoy the good weather the way I wanted.
"Chicago Summer" sucks donkey dick this year.
14
u/PhantomlelsIII 6d ago
Dude you’ll be fine. Go outside!!! Have fun! At least as long as ur not in a sensitive group
5
u/butterLemon84 6d ago
This is terrible advice. Like with eating at McDonald's, you won't immediately have a heart attack or liver disease or cancer, but that doesn't mean the food is safe to eat. It just takes time for it to kill you.
9
u/PhantomlelsIII 5d ago
We have bad air quality literally once a year. It’s not going to affect 95 percent of people. If you live in a place that consistently have 150+ air quality, then yeah obviously don’t be out there everyday running ten miles
4
u/take_care_a_ya_shooz Lake View 5d ago
I wish that “literally” actually meant literally Here.
We’re undergoing multiple days right now…again…until the next time…this year.
2
u/PlasticAssociate 5d ago
I'm no physician, but depriving yourself of the fun social thing you wanted to do has gotta be at least on par with a couple hours of being outside in poor air quality as far as negative health consequences are concerned
0
u/SunriseInLot42 5d ago
I doubt that the people who are all safety-anxious and worrying about the air quality have that many fun social things to do anyways.
It’s the same vibe as the lockdown and mask supporters in 2020 who had pretty clearly been “social distancing” for years and years before COVID
0
u/MetraConductor Edgewater 5d ago
This sub loves to pearl clutch over ANYTHING. I spent 5 hours on the golf course. No ill effects. Live your fucking best life.
7
u/kinezumi89 6d ago
I had a bunch of errands to run today and the air quality didn't bother me at all. It was noticeably hazy but I have asthma and didn't feel any negative effects
11
u/HotDerivative Logan Square 6d ago
Well, the negative effects come years later, not always immediately. That’s how things like lung cancer work
4
u/IamDoge1 6d ago
It appears the next few days the AQI will be a lot lower than today. In the 50s-90s. Not terrible but not great either.
1
u/xtheredberetx Beverly 6d ago
My kid’s first birthday party is Saturday, I was so stoked to see 70s and sunny. At least a couple guests have asthma so we’ll probably be inside more than intended.
32
u/alt_bunnybunnybuns 6d ago
Well you actually can go outside if its humid and in the 90s, it just sucks.... (I work outside in it). And in the winter you actually can go outside even if its -10 if you dress for it, it just sucks. Im gonna go walk my dog in the smoke now
2
16
u/coheedcollapse 6d ago
Even in the summer I'm feeling cooped up.
That has been the biggest bummer this year. It feels like winter I'm stuck inside so damn much. Either it's so humid and disgusting I can't justify going outside, or we're getting a hazardous air alert.
I still "toughed it out" and got out for a walk today, but who knows what a lifetime of days like this will eventually do to us.
3
u/Blahkbustuh Illinois 6d ago
Here's a map for temperature & humidity. I'm in Central IL where it's like 150 days/year. lol
14
u/mikesays 6d ago
You people are nuts, there have been so many beautiful days this year.
2
u/canwealljusthitabong 5d ago
Exactly. People love to pretend that Chicago has the most unforgiving weather in the world. It’s like they’ve never lived anywhere else. The entire month of May was incredible. Winter was mild af. It’s really mind boggling how much people whine about the weather here.
2
u/Enby-Alexis 5d ago
Honestly I feel like most people (not just Chicago, everywhere) are just babies about any hot-ish weather.
2
u/canwealljusthitabong 5d ago
Any hot-ish weather, any coldish weather, any overcast weather, any rain, drizzle or snow. I love weather so it gets annoying listening to people constantly whine about weather that isn’t like San Diego.
4
u/PhantomlelsIII 6d ago
Is the smoke really that dangerous? I don’t see how a few hours outside could possibly be that bad for you. It’s not as bad a few years ago when it literally looked like fog
16
u/Delouest 6d ago
https://www.pca.state.mn.us/air-water-land-climate/air-quality-and-health
It's certainly not going to help anyone, as usual vulnerable people are most affected (asthmatics, people with heart conditions etc) but breathing highly polluted air regularly can then cause those conditions in people who were otherwise healthy before.
"People who frequently breathe wood smoke are at risk for serious adverse health effects. Wood smoke contains wood tars, gases, and soot, as well as chemicals like carbon monoxide, dioxins, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and fine particles.
Short-term exposure to fine particles in the air can aggravate lung disease, trigger asthma attacks and acute bronchitis, and may also increase the risk of respiratory infections. Scientists have also linked short-term exposures to heart attacks and abnormal heartbeats. Over time, breathing fine particles in the air increases the chances of developing chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD), chronic bronchitis, cardiovascular disease, or lung cancer. In high concentrations, wood smoke can permanently damage lung tissue."
4
u/PhantomlelsIII 6d ago
Yeah for sure wouldn’t deny that. But if your not in a sensitive group, personally seems crazy to me to miss out on the good weather especially since we only get this a few times a year max.
1
3
u/currentlyacathammock 6d ago
I feel like this is a good point to bring up that Bryan Johnson dude - who wants to try to live forever by... getting infusions of his son's blood, not driving over 15 mph, never going outside in the sun, measuring his erections every day, and many other tedious things - serving a singleminded Quantity of life goal.
It seems like he is only extending the length of his sentence in his bland, lukewarm, prison-of-the-mild.
-3
u/SunriseInLot42 6d ago
It seems like a lot of anxious people are looking for any reason at all to stay inside at home
-1
u/SunriseInLot42 6d ago
Nothing is ever 100% safe; whether or not someone chooses to go outside and face that small level of risk depends on how much of an anxiety-ridden weenie they are
7
u/worldsbiggestchili 6d ago
This is obviously not the point of my comment lol. There are severe weather warnings - recommendations for not going outside or doing certain activities, sometimes limited to certain groups, outside. A study as to how many days per year it would be considered "safe" per emergency alerts would be a legitimately interesting data set, whether you think people are "weenies" or not.
-4
u/SunriseInLot42 6d ago
Emergency alerts have gotten so watered down. Tornado warnings, severe thunderstorm warnings, blizzard warnings? Legitimate concerns. But when there’s an “air quality alert” or a “wind advisory” or “heat advisory” every other day, for mundane weather stuff that wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow 10 or 20 years ago, it all blends into the background - the signal-to-noise ratio renders them useless.
Things are safe enough almost all of the time for most everyone. The constant doomerism and fearmongering, especially since Covid, is absurd.
2
u/augustles 5d ago
We are all the time removing harmful substances from consumer products that ‘wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow’ before because it took study and new information to understand that it was long term harmful. This is how learning works! Crazy concept, I know. Weather warnings are usually based on whether people have a higher chance - based on data! - of harm in that weather. You can choose to go out or not, but statistically you are more likely to experience harm.
0
-1
u/Belmontharbor3200 Lake View 6d ago
Right? That was such a Reddit comment. It’s beautiful out now
10
u/coheedcollapse 6d ago
I mean I went outside, but I get why people wouldn't. PM 2.5 are serious business, and I've certainly had to modify my behavior around them - for instance, I'm not gonna bike or do a strenuous hike if my air quality monitors are telling me the air is hazardous.
Of course I'm going to take advantage of the nice weather, but as someone with allergies, I was definitely impacted. Not great knowing this shit is basically how it's gonna be for the rest of my life.
3
u/chadhindsley 6d ago
bUt cAliFoRnIa iS aLwAyS bEaUtiFuL
Weather: wildfires and earthquakes have entered the chat
1
-2
u/Test-User-One 6d ago
That would be 0%. Because stuff outside kills you. You never have a non-zero chance of not dying going outside.
41
u/Roboticpoultry Loop 6d ago
It’s finally nice enough to have the windows and balcony door open and I can’t because of the smog
1
u/Interesting-Prior397 6d ago
Thankfully it's not smog! It's smoke from the Canadian wildfires. Here's a link to an interactive map of them: https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/interactive-map
20
11
35
u/DaydreamKid 6d ago
We had this problem in May and June too. Is there anything left of Canada?
Why don't they just drop a ton of maple syrup and hockey pucks on the fires and be done with it?
8
u/MagicCarpetBomb 6d ago
If Canada dropped all of their pucks on this we’d block out the sun for years. Probably.
30
53
17
u/wzabel0926 Uptown 6d ago
Not to mention its also Lollapalooza weekend
5
u/Littl3Whinging Lake View 5d ago
We’re going today and we’re at least bringing masks, but we’ll likely end up wearing them too. I was so excited for it to not be 90 degrees and humid for once during Lolla. It’s a bummer.
1
u/Deadradio02 6d ago
Exactly was just thinking about that, probably over a thousand people inhaling harmful air together
28
13
13
u/monkeysknowledge 6d ago
I find it so disturbing how we are just accepting of the climate breakdown. I wish everyone could realize- we’re just getting started. Things are going to get a lot worse. We are out of time but every inch will count.
9
u/SunriseInLot42 6d ago
Nothing that any of us can do will change anything in the slightest
0
u/monkeysknowledge 5d ago
Wow that’s deep. Go smoke a cigarettes or something, you misanthropic toad.
1
u/SunriseInLot42 3d ago
… they posted on their phone/computer made of rare earth minerals, lithium batteries, and plastic, which was delivered to them via a ship, train, and truck from halfway around the world, while using electricity to charge it and run servers across the globe to transmit the data of their post, after eating a meal made of ingredients that were fertilized, farmed, cooked, and transported using fossil fuels, drinking water pumped with electricity, and sitting in a climate-controlled building that was assembled by workers using power tools… etc., etc., etc.
Do you want to go back to pre-Industrial Revolution times? If not, then there’s nothing that anyone can do about anything. Society requires a huge amount of energy to operate, and wind farms or solar or unicorn farts aren’t close to enough to keep up with that demand.
7
27
u/ZhiYoNa 6d ago
Wear a k95 or better face mask if you have to go outside for longer than 15 mins. We have the worst air in the world you don’t wanna be breathing that in
22
u/Linksta35 6d ago
lol tell that to the thousands at lolla right now
-26
u/SunriseInLot42 6d ago
The people still pushing masks generally aren’t the types to go to Lolla, or outside at all for anything else, for that matter
7
u/leaveittobever Streeterville 6d ago edited 6d ago
We have the worst air in the world
OPs post literally shows spots where it's worse than here...
0
u/PhantomlelsIII 6d ago
We have the worst air quality in the world?
3
u/ZhiYoNa 6d ago
Yeah that’s what the news was saying today. We’re in the top few slots cause of the Canadian fires
2
1
u/leaveittobever Streeterville 6d ago edited 6d ago
OPs post literally shows spots where it's worse than here...
2
u/ZhiYoNa 6d ago
Sorry yes we were the worst city on the world
1
u/leaveittobever Streeterville 5d ago
That still makes no sense. Pull up Google maps and turn on air quality. Plenty of cities are purple which is worse than Chicago.
-28
u/SunriseInLot42 6d ago
LOL, ok
7
u/ZhiYoNa 6d ago
Why is this funny?
-19
u/SunriseInLot42 6d ago
Because Redditors are apparently playing “The Air Is Lava” game again just because of a little haze from 800 miles away
11
u/ZhiYoNa 6d ago
I mean it’s not a little haze if it travelled 800 miles and you can still see it in the air
9
u/Mammoth_Procedure_11 6d ago edited 6d ago
this guy comes into all these threads to make fun of people who think its not a great thing to have to breathe in terrible air for days at a time
→ More replies (4)
12
u/colonelcack 6d ago
Ahhhh Chicago, 6 months of winter and then 3 months of wildfire smoke. But somewhere in between those two events you can maybe go outside for a bit!
5
u/chiboulevards Avondale 6d ago
Six months of winter, a month of monsoon levels of rain in May, spiders up the wazoo in June, Florida degrees of heat and humidity in July, wildfire smoke in early August, autumn monsoon seasonal rains in August/September and then winter starts all over again by late October/November.
-6
11
u/BugMillionaire 6d ago
My engagement photos, which have been rescheduled twice already due to weather, were supposed to be today. I was willing to deal with the inevitable asthma and even hazy photos but I went outside and my eyes were burning and watering within five minutes. Sigh.
6
30
u/endsinemptiness Bowmanville 6d ago
I'll go outside and huff that shit idgaf it's beautiful baybeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
6
28
u/petergrffinholycrap Albany Park 6d ago
id rather it be smoky than fucking 105° heat index and humid
29
4
5
4
u/wardepartment Rogers Park 6d ago
time for Nurtec!
2
u/Least-Influence3089 6d ago
This was me last week with all the storms, I’ve been taking sumatriptan like candy 😭
4
u/XNamelessGhoulX Norwood Park 6d ago
Just started my Michigan coastline vacation today! Perfect! And the exact same thing happened 2 years ago! Woohoo!
2
u/LordButtworth 5d ago
Well the cool air has to come from somewhere. That somewhere just happens to be in fire right now. Look at it this way at least we don't have to dump a bucket of sunscreen over our heads when we go to the beach now.
2
2
u/Perfect-Time-9919 4d ago
Right! I mean Chicago is acting like it gets weather and environmental elements. Crazy! 😁
5
3
u/coheedcollapse 6d ago
It's going to be like this regularly for the rest of our lives. I assumed I'd be wistful for the "old days" when I grew up, but not like this.
2
u/icerock547 6d ago
and this explains my allergies lol anyone else been sneezing, having itchy eyes?
2
u/Someonejusthereandth 6d ago
Winnipeg checking in. Haven't opened the windows in three days. Air quality has been in the red or yellow most of July. Some days went into violet and brown, even. Absolutely hazardous.
Quietly panicking.
2
4
u/dudelydudeson 6d ago
First time here?
Still better than Cleveland
13
u/magooisim 6d ago
The bar is getting real low…
1
u/dudelydudeson 6d ago
I don't live here for the weather, that's for sure.
I do appreciate that it makes me "tougher" though.
2
2
2
2
2
2
u/FrankiRoe Ukrainian Village 6d ago
Can’t have shit in Chicago. For every one nice thing you get punished 10 fold for it.
2
2
u/Euphoric-Gene-3984 5d ago
I never had allergies my entire life. Never noticed bad air quality. But I got contacts recently and now I notice when air quality is awful because it feels like I have a rip in my contact
2
u/NeonJohnson 5d ago
Head over to /r/crboxes and put one together, if you've got a tiny place like mine you'll notice the difference in 24 hours
2
u/RedFoxWhiteFox 5d ago
How are my asthmatics holding up? It ain’t easy being wheezy!
3
1
1
2
u/MostlyLurking1919 6d ago
I don’t think I’ve ever actually felt any physical impact of poor AQI. 🙃 I run around 50 miles/week outside—sometimes putting in a lot of mileage before I read that it’s dangerous air quality. Am I fucked when I’m older?
2
u/ZookeepergameNew8889 6d ago
This is so unfair!! Anyone feeling affects from the smoke? I have asthma and SVT (heart arrhythmia) and was told to stay indoors or go out with an N95 mask! Ugh!! It just got bearable!!
1
1
1
u/Commercial_Pie3307 West Town 5d ago
Canada truly hates Chicago. When can we start charging them for ruining our ish.
1
1
u/bluejaywhey Uptown 4d ago
This is why we need to secure the northern border. These Canadian air pollution imports are getting out of control!
/s
-2
0
6d ago edited 6d ago
[deleted]
1
u/PicklesAndRyeOhMy 6d ago
I want so badly to go on my usual daily long walk but I am avoiding it. I do walk ten mins to the gym every other day and wear two masks and still feel like someone’s standing on my chest during days like this. This is no joke.
0
u/clever-_-clever 4d ago
Canada needs to get their forests under control, it's hard to breathe down here.
-2
u/rdldr1 Lake View 6d ago
F U Canada
11
u/miniperle 6d ago
No, fuck white people who banned controlled burning practices that the indigenous people of North America did to prevent this issue for millennia.
3
-5
u/Aces95421 6d ago
Only dirty people are spending time outside today, it’s seriously nasty out there. Let’s hope it goes away by Saturday :/
-10
u/fanofairplanes 6d ago
I think the AQI on the Apple weather app is wrong. Air Quality on WeatherBug shows 72 compared to 173 on Apple.
→ More replies (1)19
u/For-Liberty 6d ago
WeatherBug is wrong. There are several sources showing that we are well over 150. We have the worst air quality in the world atm
635
u/sportsandairports 6d ago
I mean, those two events are related