DC Weather: Wildfire smoke brings Code Orange air quality alert as heat grips DC region

For us, as the smoke plume kind of descends south into the mid-Atlantic, but it's been terrible up in New England as we're just seeing the video there, unhealthy, and that unhealthy air continues up there for another day or so, kind of concentrated up in New York and New England. In fact, I'll show you the smoke, I hate to do a smoke forecast, but I'm literally going to show you a smoke forecast map here in just a moment. All right, let's revisit yesterday quickly, didn't hit 100. The reason we didn't hit 100, we had some of that haze out there with some of that wildfire smoke. 97 in Washington, 95 Dulles. We've taken the numbers down a degree or two today as a direct result of some of that wildfire smoke we're expecting to continue to kind of move on into the mid-Atlantic. So not that it's going to be a pleasant day, it won't, but we probably won't hit 100. We'll be in the mid-upper 90s. 82 uncomfortable degrees at 7 a.m. for you. 75 in Leonardtown, 82 Dulles. I hate to see morning numbers at 7 a.m. in the 80s because, anytime you set your day in the 80s, you know where you're headed, and that is into the uncomfortable department. Very hot day, got a few clouds out there. We also have a lot of that haze. We've been monitoring the sunrise here together for the past hour or so, and it's that sort of creepy, eerie orange glow out there as there's a lot of haze and a lot of smoke in the atmosphere. You can see some of that smoke. And again, the origins of our wildfires up here in Western Ontario, and they're getting thrown across the Great Lakes, and the worst plume, the worst of what we call the particulate matter, see the darker purples, are just off to our north, up towards New York City, Boston, where we were just showing you the video. We too, unfortunately, are going to get in on that smoke later today, and the forecast at six o'clock tonight just kind of, you know, the worst of the smoke kind of moves on top of our region over the next 24 hours. I think tomorrow morning the air quality may be poor, and we are officially in our code orange air quality for today. Okay, could we get a storm? That would really help. Probably not, but maybe we can get one or two showers or storms and just kind of mix up the atmosphere a little bit later today. That would be great. We'll do that again tomorrow with one or two lonesome storms. But I want to point out for you, the best chance of rain will be on Saturday afternoon. Nope, that was Saturday night. I kind of went through it too quick. But Saturday afternoon looks like we could have some storms, and that will certainly help not only our wildfire smoke situation, but it'll help cool us down as well. Hazy, hot, and humid this afternoon. 99 degrees. Annie Mae? All right, thanks. Take a look here. 716 Euro Zero. Traveling out this morning, looking 270 in the southbound direction should be your drive time currently between 70 and the Belway. About 43 minutes there for that 32-mile stretch. You can see both of our traffic cameras here. This is around Maryland 109, where you can see traffic traveling pretty normally. And then this is around Democracy Boulevard, where you're looking at a definite slowdown. But this is pretty normal drive time. That definitely starts to get up to about an hour in the coming 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock. Specifically, 8 o'clock is a little bit more there for you. That's a look 270 in the southbound direction. Not really looking at too many incidents elsewhere. But that's 717. Update from the traffic. Back to you, Melissa.