MI Skies Still Smoky: Here's When Conditions Should Improve

METRO DETROIT — Although the air quality in the metro Detroit area improved Thursday morning, it was still some of the worst air to breathe in the world.

After the Detroit area rendered a "hazardous" air quality index of 306 Wednesday morning, conditions slightly improved to 175, making for "unhealthy" to "very unhealthy" air quality Thursday, according to AirNow.Gov.

Across the nation, only the Chicago area's air quality Thursday morning was worse than the Detroit area.

An air quality alert remained in effect for all of southeastern Michigan through at least Thursday as wildfire smoke from burning Canadian forests hundreds of miles away blanket the area.

While thunderstorms may temporarily break the hazy skies over southeastern Michigan on Thursday evening, winds shifting to the south will bring back most of the smoke northerly winds just pushed through the area.

Forecasters expect the southerly winds to stick around Friday and push the smoky air out of the region. Overall, forecasters expect the air quality across southeastern Michigan to greatly improve over the weekend.

Exposure to air pollutants from the wildfire smoke can cause headaches, irritated eyes and sinuses, fatigue, difficulty breathing, chest pains, asthma attacks, irritated throat and increased coughing, the weather service said.

Wildfires have been stretches of Canadian forests in the Ontario and Quebec provinces for weeks. There were 492 active wildfires burning throughout Canada as of Monday, with 259 are considered out of control, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.