Haze over Southwest Florida from fires more than 1,000 miles away

The last couple of days there have seen hazy skies over the Sunshine State due to wildfires in Mexico and Central America.

As of Wednesday afternoon, there are more than 200 active fires burning in Mexico leading to “unhealthy” and “very unhealthy” air quality in parts of Mexico and Central America.

Some of that smoke is being blown into Southwest Florida. Prevailing winds have been predominately west/southwest to east, which has pushed the smoke from Mexico across the Gulf of Mexico and into Southwest Florida.

The smoke hasn’t impacted local air quality too much as most of Southwest Florida has “good” to “moderate” air quality, but we have been seeing haze.

We could see the haze linger for the next couple of days until the prevailing winds shift.

Models are currently showing that prevailing winds will remain onshore until Sunday when they become northwesterly.