Environment Canada has confirmed that this summer is the smokiest on record for Airdrie and Calgary. 

The agency didn’t keep track of this stat until this year when many communities were blanketed in smoke from the B.C. Wildfires.

Meteorologist Dan Kulak says they tracked the smoke from the Calgary International Airport and found this summer to be record-breaking.

“316 hours of 6 miles or less of smoke compared to a 1981 to 2010 average for the same time period of only 12 hours. Very much a smoky year and the smokiest year we have on record.”

Kulak says they looked at data from the airport that dated back to 1981, using an aviation observation of visibility of 6 miles or less of smoke.

The data for summer smoke is taken from May to about the end of August.

What then was the previous record for the area?

“Interestingly enough, for the same period, the previous record for Calgary was 2017 at 315 hours,” says Kulak, “the third-ranking year for Calgary was 2015 at 155 hours.”

Kulak also points out that it wasn’t just Airdrie and Calgary that broke records.

“Edmonton International has a new record, the number of smoke hours this year for May to September, 168 hours. Grande Prairie also has a new record for the number of smoke hours record this year. We’ve got a number of records where smoke has obviously been prevalent for most of the summer here.”

Environment Canada is still keeping track of the smoke until the end of August meaning that the 316 hours could increase before summer is done.

READ MORE

Airdrie Experiencing The Worst Air Quality In The Province

Questions, comments or story ideas? Email us at news@discoverairdrie.com