Why is the sky yellow today? Boston air quality "a little eerie" for some.
Hazy, yellow skies in Boston could cause some people to change their outdoor plans Wednesday. Others, meanwhile, were still taking advantage of summer activities despite the poor air quality.
For a few moments Wednesday morning, the sun glowed bright orange before the smoke and haze completely covered it once again.
"It's a little eerie. I feel like I keep finding myself staring at the sun because it looks so crazy because of all the smoke," Lauren Mahoney said.
More than 800 wildfires are burning across Canada. Winds carried that plume more than 1,000 miles to Massachusetts Tuesday, turning the sky an unusual yellow hue.
There's an even bigger plume of smoke in Boston Wednesday.
"You can smell the smoke faintly and the haze is like, where did that come from? Because I was expecting it to be bright and sunny," Charlene Taylor said.
It's not just the sky that looks eerie. At Castle Island in South Boston, it felt a little eerie too due to the lack of people.
"We were noticing there are less people walking around. There are some people doing dedicated runs, they look very athletic. But the people like us, I don't see here today," Dorothy Christiansen said.
The haze over Boston Harbor was not deterring people from coming out to see the tall ships on the last day of Sail Boston, even though the smoke is having an impact.
"It's a little heavier and there's humidity in the air, so I think the combination of the two makes it harder to breathe, for me anyway," Chris Kanuth of Princeton said while taking in the event.
The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection issued an air quality alert for all of Massachusetts on Wednesday. People with underlying conditions like asthma are the most at risk, but everyone can take small steps to stay safe.
"Today might not be a day to take a long stroll outside because that's when you're inhaling some of these substances out in the air. Might be a good day to keep your windows closed," said Sucharita Kher, a pulmonary critical care physician at Tufts Medical Center. "It's a good day to have an air filter at home."
