The Central Valley’s Tuesday Morning Smell Solved

Image courtesy of the US Forest Service
Image courtesy of the US Forest Service

FRESNO (KMJ) — If you woke Tuesday morning and wondered what that smokey smell was, it wasn’t anything local.

In fact it was coming from the Soberanes Fire in Monterey County.

“Looks like last night we had a big wind shift”, explains meteorologist Jim Dudley with the National Weather Service in Hanford.

“Wind came in pretty strong from the west and it brought in smoke from the Soberanes Fire over in Monterey County and dumped a lot of it in the valley”.

He explains that the Central Valley got very warm on Monday, and that creates low pressure. The change then funnels air from the coast into our skies to replace it.

“It just brought smoke with it”.

But the smoke that remains in our skies Tuesday morning should be it for the foreseeable future.

“There’s no additional smoke coming in overnight. The winds have subsided so whatever got in here is in here and it should naturally dissipate with time”, adds Dudley.

“I don’t know how long that should take though”.

Hear the story from KMJ’s Dominic McAndrew as it aired: