Smoky haze hovering over Sonoma County expected to lift this week

Smoke drifting into Sonoma County from wildfires raging to the north and east caused officials to issue a fifth ‘Spare the Air Day’ warning in a row Monday.|

A moody, humid haze settled over Sonoma County over the holiday weekend, the combined result of clouds from a tropical weather system and smoke from wildfires raging across northern California and in southern Oregon.

With pollution levels high, Bay Area air quality officials issued a smog advisory and a Spare the Air Day Monday, which they have done every day since Thursday, urging people to avoid outdoor exercise and take other precautions.

The smoky air “is stuck, it’s just hanging,” said Steve Anderson, National Weather Service meteorologist.

A weather buoy outside Bodega Bay recorded mild winds at 5.8 knots with gusts at 7.8 knots, said Petty Officer John Higgins at Coast Guard Bodega Bay.

“That’s pretty much nothing at all,” Higgins said.

Pollution levels should lessen by today, and the Bay Area Air Quality District did not issue a sixth “Spare the Air” warning. A small craft advisory was in effect.

The smoke drifted into the region from a number of large wildfires burning to the north and east.

A lightning-sparked wildfire burning for two months in southern Oregon was recorded at 142,857 acres Monday in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness.

Four separate wildfires have burned more than 150,000 acres in Siskyou County along the Oregon border, and a destructive fire in Trinity County destroyed an estimated 72 homes and was only 14 percent contained at 8,940 acres.

In the Sierra foothills, a 4,016-acre wildfire burned about 20 miles east of Oroville in Butte County.

The humidity, which brought brief drops of precipitation in some pockets of Sonoma County, came from a fading tropical storm system in Baja, Mexico, according to Anderson.

Monday’s mid-80s to low 90s temperatures - with a high of 86 degrees in Santa Rosa, 92 degrees in Cloverdale - probably felt several degrees hotter because the body doesn’t cool itself as efficiently in humid conditions, Anderson said.

Today, the wind should pick up in the afternoon and “start clearing out the air,” Anderson said.

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