Seeing smoke in the air around Sonoma County? Blame the weather

A faint hint of smoke tinged the air in Santa Rosa Tuesday morning, an unwelcome return after days of blue skies and air quality ratings of fair or better.

While unmistakable for those on the ground in Sonoma County, its return puzzled forecasters and air quality experts based in more southerly portions of the Bay Area.

Winds in Santa Rosa had been generally calm and out of the west all morning, according to the National Weather Service.

Overnight, elevations as high as 2,000 feet were reporting winds out of the northeast, said Scott Rowe, a forecaster with the weather service, but he couldn’t say for certain whether that would account for the smoky smell in the Santa Rosa plain.

“If we were to see a northeast flow make it to the surface, like in Santa Rosa, it would probably be drier,” he said. “But the humidity is 53 percent at the airport right now.”

It was also possible that smoke in the upper levels of the atmosphere settled down into the valley as winds died down overnight, said Tom Flannigan, a spokesman for the Bay Area Air Quality District. He said there had been no reports of anyone calling to report smoke in Santa Rosa, and that satellite imagery showed no smoke over the area.

“We checked all our readings and everything is in the good to moderate range, so we’re not really sure,” he said. “It’s hard for us to say. We have nothing definitive to show that there’s any air quality situation.”

Santa Rosa Fire Chief Tony Gossner was monitoring the forecast, as unseasonably high temperatures are predicted for Santa Rosa today and tomorrow, thanks to a high pressure ridge that has settled over the length of the state.

“The weather is concerning, but everything looks great,” he said, noting that the heat paired with northeast breezes could mean people see more smoke where there are hot spots remaining in fire zones, but that those are well within containment lines.

“With the warmer wind, we’re expecting those to crop up,” he said. “We have a lot of resources in place just to deal with those nuisance smokes.”

Staff Writer Randi Rossmann contributed to this story. You can reach Staff Writer Christi Warren at 707-521-5205 or christi.warren@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @SeaWarren.