Climate Central showed more Americans breathed in wildfire smoke last year than any other since 2006. The findings come as Houston deals with haze.Houstonians may have noticed a hazy sky this week as smoke from Mexico and Central America wildfires has lingered overhead. While wildfires are not a new phenomenon nor directly caused by climate change, there is a link between how global weather patterns change as the climate warms.
The most significant contributor was Canada's record wildfire season, sending smoky skies across much of the upper Midwest and Northeast for days, if not weeks, at a time. Some of that smoke reached Texas, though smoke from wildfires in the West and South is more prevalent in southeast Texas.