California's wildfire smoke nearly engulfed subtropical storm Ernesto in the Atlantic

Post-Tropical Storm Ernesto is currently battering parts of the United Kingdom and Ireland today with rain and strong winds that remarkably carry wildfire smoke from California and Canadian. The storm that formed in the Atlantic was “choked” by the 3 largest wildfires from California on August 16, 2018. The smoke wafted over 3000 miles across America before meeting the sub-tropical storm that was forming in the Atlantic. That smoke is able to travel that far is not unheard of, but it is extremely rare according to atmospheric scientists.

Verification that the haziness to the north and west of #STD5 (#Ernesto) is indeed from the #CaliforniaWildfires ... backward trajectories point right to it! https://t.co/rZEwZWGUhp#hysplit#firespic.twitter.com/2Cfsf8hOGI

Mark Kaufman of Mashable notes that the collision event “is yet another stark consequence of climate change enhancing Earth's natural processes”.

Wildfires are a natural summer occurrence, but record heat in North America has desiccated the soil and vegetation in the Western U.S. and Canada enabling deadly and expansive firestorms to form. Mashable makes the critical point that it takes a lot of smoke to create this kind of global impact. California provided the necessary smoke for the phenomenon. 

The easily visible collision of storm and smoke occurred when the formidable Canadian wildfires were added to the mix, with the benefit of high atmospheric winds.

Erdman cited past instances of smoke both enhancing rainfall, and suppressing storms.

The smoke from the western North America #wildfires is moving eastward across the Atlantic Ocean, captured here by our #GOESEast satellite. More imagery: https://t.co/P1F11zXUHIpic.twitter.com/HsJh25vbvY

Kaufman continues. 

Although this seems like a pretty exceptional event, there's a reasonable chance that much more smoke will enter the high atmosphere in the coming weeks and months.

As Yale University fire scientist Jennifer Marlon noted yesterday, robust fires are still raging, and "there’s still plenty of forest out there to burn."