“What they would have seen is just a haze from the smoke, from the wildfires that have been burning out west and that smoke has been transported east; so every once in a while, if we have enough wildfires out west, you can see the smoke, here over our area,” Reynolds told WXXI News.
Reynolds says the smoke can also change the color of the sky, making it appear redder than usual.
“Once the sun gets lower, the light gets scattered and then you can see the smoke and then you can see the color in the sky.”
While this latest wispy, smoke was related to wildfires in Canada, Reynolds says even fires in California can sometimes cause the same phenomenon.
“Some of that smoke, depending on what pattern we’re in ,what kind of jetstream aloft, some of that smoke could get transported east, it’s usually under very rare conditions, but it does happen.”
The National Weather Service uses certain kinds of satellite technology to make sure they can distinguish between cirrus clouds and what may be smoke from wildfires.