Sorry to tell you this, but no, the smoke is not going to clear out of the Puget Sound region on Thursday.
At least, it's highly unlikely.
Despite seeing a small bit of air quality improvement along the coast due to some showers and a little push of marine air, air quality around the Seattle area was in the familiar "unhealthy" or "very unhealthy" ranges Thursday morning. It's expected to remain so.
"I don't see a significant improvement," Samantha Borth, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Seattle, said Thursday morning. "There's a southerly wind bringing in more smoke from Oregon and California, and it will linger through today."
She said, however, thunderstorms building in Oregon are forecast to potentially move into the Seattle area on Friday, as well as a low-pressure system, stalled for days off the coast, that could move inland as the weekend begins.
"We're hoping tomorrow and Saturday we will get something more impactful that will scour out the smoke," Borth said Thursday.
Borth said we could appear to have a slight improvement Thursday as the day wears on because the fog mixed with the smoke in the morning will burn off.
In Seattle this year, the worst air quality index came in at 314 near Seattle's Georgetown neighborhood on Monday. That's the worst the Puget Sound region has recorded, said Dan Jaffe, a physical science professor at University of Washington-Bothell who specializes in wildfire smoke.
"2018 was the highest ever," Jaffe said. "We've now broken that record."
In 2018, Jaffe said the highest PM2.5 rating -- which measures particulate matter, or how many tiny, inhalable particles are in the air -- got up to around 150 micrograms per cubic meter. Earlier this week, Seattle hit 264.
The advice from experts: Stay inside and breathe as little of that outside air as possible.
Jaffe added, however, that -- while it depends on the age, type and ventilation system of a home -- indoor air quality can sometimes be just as bad as outside. His advice is to pick up some air-quality monitors and invest in some reliable air-filtration systems.
"Think about identifying one or two rooms in your house and those are the rooms you're going to protect," Jaffe said. "Think about where you're spending most of your time ... and clean the air spaces there."
While large fires continue to burn on the West Coast, the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center (NWCC) on Wednesday morning reported the containment of five large fires in Washington and Oregon: Evans Canyon, White River, Manning Road, Alameda and Babb. On Thursday morning, the Customs Road fire near Curlew, Wash., was also listed as 100% contained.
In Washington, the blazes have burned more than 807,000 acres, an area about 15 times the size of Seattle. And although most of the fires started this month, the area burned is almost two-thirds the amount of land burned during the state's record-breaking fire season of 2015.
The fires have also destroyed more than 400 structures -- half of which were homes -- and taken down several hundred power-transmission poles, Gov. Jay Inslee said Tuesday. In Central Washington, he said, about 200 miles of power transmission lines were down.
Eight fires are being monitored by the NWCC, which gave the following status report on Thursday morning:
* Inchelium Complex encompassing the Fry, Inchelium Highway and Kewa Field fires (started Sept. 7), north of Inchelium: 19,005 acres of grass, brush and timber (65 more than Wednesday), 62% contained, active fire behavior. Structures threatened. Evacuation notices in effect.
* Big Hollow fire (started Sept. 8), northwest of Carson: 22,973 acres of timber and slash (2,168 more than Wednesday), 25% completed, moderate fire behavior. Structures threatened. Evacuation notices and road, trail and area closures in effect.
* Whitney fire (started Sept. 7), northwest of Davenport: 127,430 acres of grass, brush and timber (unchanged since Wednesday), 95% contained, minimal fire behavior. Structures threatened.
* Cold Springs fire (started Sept. 6), south of Omak: 189,592 acres of grass and brush (740 more than Wednesday), 80% contained, minimal fire behavior. Structures threatened. Evacuation notices and road, trail and area closures in effect.
* Pearl Hill fire (started Sept. 7 when it split off from the Cold Springs fire), east of Bridgeport: 223,730 acres of grass and brush (unchanged since Wednesday afternoon), 94% contained, minimal fire behavior. Road and area closures in effect.
* Cold Creek fire (started Sept. 14), west of Yakima: 252 acres of timber (100 more than Wednesday), 5% contained, active fire behavior. Structures threatened. Road, trail and area closures in effect.
* Fish fire (started Sept. 8 by humans), east of Enumclaw: 132 acres of timber (unchanged since Wednesday), 75% contained, minimal fire behavior. Road closures in effect.
* Customs Road fire (started Sept. 7), northwest of Curlew: 2,208 acres of timber and brush (unchanged since Wednesday), 100% contained, minimal fire behavior.
The NWCC has given no update on these Washington fires since Wednesday:
* Sumner Grade fire (started Sept. 7), northeast of Waller: 494 acres of grass, brush and timber, 95% contained, minimal fire behavior.
* Apple Acres fire (started Sept. 7), northeast of Chelan: 5,500 acres of grass, timber and brush (273 fewer than Tuesday afternoon), 99% contained, minimal fire behavior.
The following Washington fires are considered contained as of Wednesday morning, according to the NWCC:
* Babb fire (started Sept. 7), north of Colfax: Burned at least 15,266 acres of grass, brush and timber.
* Manning Road fire (started Sept. 7), northeast of Colfax: Burned at least 2,685 acres of grass, brush and timber.
* Evans Canyon fire (started Aug. 31), northwest of Naches: Burned at least 75,817 acres of timber, grass and brush.
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