Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Yes, it certainly was like a never-ending severe weather cut-in during last night's weather casts. I showed one plume of smoke after another and at one point a dozen new wildfires were being tracked per hour on live doppler radar. I have never seen anything like it. I have been tracking weather all over the country for about 20 years at different media outlets and on my own since I was 4 years old drawing weather maps. I usually love weather extremes but I have put fires and smoke on the list with ice storms as my least favorite weather to track and forecast. The main thing yesterday like every day is keeping people safe and sticking to the basics. I got word out on the wind direction that may threaten neighborhoods. Luckily there were no big wind shifts and evacuations were minimal. Good for people, but bad for our lungs as the air quality went into the unhealthy range for sensitive groups.

As the temperature creeps close to 100 degrees, our ER doctors want to remind the public to stay safe.

“Hot weather illnesses can creep up on you,” says Memorial Hospital’s Dr. Steven Blake. “You have to drink a lot of water and realize that you can get a heat-related illness during any time of the day when it is this hot.”

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Smoke is covering much of the First Coast like a blanket, and it's coming from all around.

Dozens of fires are burning north, west and south of Jacksonville.

Light, variable winds all morning, combined with high pressure sitting right over Jacksonville, forced smoke from all around over the city and left it nowhere to go, according to meteorologist Mike Prangley.

The seabreeze kicked in this afternoon, forcing the smoke back to the west and clearing the air in Jacksonville,

Chief Meteorologist Tim Deegan said the pattern that caused today's situation will be in place again Saturday -- smoke hovering in the morning, clearing in the afternoon -- and similar, if a bit worse, Sunday.

As next week begins, Deegan said a mixed blessing is in store.