I’ve added the [contradicting U.S. weather officials] portion to the title to add context for why this is a story. However it isn’t a necessary change and I’m open to removing it. Story below:

U.S. weather officials say winds are kicking up old ash on Mount St. Helens left over from the 1980 eruption, and those particles are drifting through Washington State.

There was speculation the ash travelled hundreds of kilometres north, settling on surfaces in the capital region.

However, Environment Canada says the ash in Victoria is from the Bear Gulch wildfire, which is about 6,300 hectares in size and burning west of Seattle.

“We see the plume over Victoria and it actually looks like it’s even making it into Howe Sound and points further north from there,” Dov Bensimon with Environment Canada’s Volcanic Ash Activity Centre said.

While volcanic ash and wildfire smoke can affect people with respiratory issues, the difference between the two is that wildfire ash dissolves in water and varies in shape.

“Volcanic ash is very fine rock fragments,” Bensimon said. “So if you put it in water, it’s not going to dissolve. It’s more like extremely fine sand.”

He also said volcanic ash does not travel very far.

  • Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca
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    8 days ago

    All the US Weather officials were probably fired, and replaced with a herd of goats, so not surprising.

    • cecilkorik@lemmy.ca
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      8 days ago

      Worse, they were probably replaced with Grok. A herd of goats has more intelligence than that.

    • DonkMagnum@lemy.lol
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      7 days ago

      They can’t admit they have forest fire smoke blowing north, after all the Republicans demanded we stop letting ours blow south.