DEC, DOH issue air-quality advisory for Thursday; Jazz in the City postpones Thursday opening concert

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Canadian wildfire smoke continues disrupt daily life across upstate New York. State officials have again issued an air-quality health advisory for Thursday for areas of New York state that include Central New York, eastern Lake Ontario, and Western New York.

The current conditions have prompted several area cancellations, including the Thursday opening concert of Jazz in the City at Kirk Park featuring Brownskin with Joe Driscoll. That concert has been moved to Wednesday, June 14 at Kirk Park from 6-9 p.m., per the series organizer.

Basil Seggos, commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and Dr. James McDonald, commissioner of the New York State Department of Health (DOH) issued the advisory on Wednesday afternoon.

The advisory will be in effect from 12 a.m. through 11:59 p.m. Thursday. The smoke, dust, and particulate from Canadian wildfires are impacting the air over upstate New York.

The air quality is forecasted to reach ‘Unhealthy’ air-quality index (AQI) levels on Thursday in the Central and Western, Eastern Lake Ontario, New York City Metro, and Long Island regions, the DEC said.

The pollutant of concern is fine particulate matter. DEC and DOH issue air quality health advisories when DEC meteorologists predict levels of pollution, either ozone or fine particulate matter are expected to exceed an AQI value of 100.

The AQI was created as an easy way to correlate levels of different pollutants to one scale, with a higher AQI value indicating a greater health concern.