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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) \u2014 Smoke from Canadian wildfires that has engulfed the Northeast in haze is expected to mostly clear from the New Jersey area just in time for the World Cup final on Sunday, thanks to thunderstorms passing through the area, meteorologists say.<\/p>\n
Warnings of unhealthy air quality remained in effect Saturday across a wide swath of the United States. At MetLife Stadium, where the final is taking place, it rained heavily and thunder boomed. State police urged people to leave the stadium seating bowl and field and take shelter. Volunteers and staff dashed inside for cover as ponchos were handed out. The sky was the same thick, soupy gray it has been for days.<\/p>\n
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill warned residents Saturday about the potential for damaging winds, tornadoes, flash flooding and large hail, and flooding caused scattered street closures in New York. Spain\u2019s training session ahead of the final against Argentina was suspended at a field near the stadium because of the storms and lighting in the area. And FIFA said it was in close contact with local authorities as it continues to monitor the impacts from the wildfire smoke and the storms on the conditions on field at MetLife Stadium.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump faulted Canada for the smoke crossing the border and threatened tariffs in response. Ontario Premier Doug Ford said threats from the United States were unacceptable and shortsighted. This storm front will largely move the smoke out of the Northeast before the final between Spain and Argentina, said Tyler Roys, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather. MetLife Stadium, which has been renamed the New York\/New Jersey Stadium for the matches, is an open-air stadium.<\/p>\n \u201cThere could be some lingering smoke that would make things hazy, but very faint,\u201d Roys said. \u201cIn terms of the thickest smoke, the smoke that has really been eye-popping and leads to poor air quality, that is not expected across New York City or much of the Northeast.\u201d<\/p>\n Meteorologist says the air quality for the game \u2018won\u2019t be dangerous\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n WFLA-TV Chief Meteorologist and Climate Specialist Jeff Berardelli, in Tampa, Florida, echoed that, saying the storm front would \u201csweep the atmosphere clean,\u201d leaving only a thin smoke that World Cup spectators may still smell in the air.<\/p>\n The air quality index shows an improvement from unhealthy air for sensitive groups on Saturday to \u201cmoderate\u201d air quality Sunday in East Rutherford, which means little to no health risk for the general public.<\/p>\n \u201cIt won\u2019t be dangerous anymore,\u201d Berardelli said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be dramatically better.\u201d<\/p>\n The smoke could still cause issues for people who are sensitive to particulate matter, and they should check the air quality index particularly in the morning, said Rob Shackelford, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel app and weather.com.<\/p>\n Air quality at the field is measured every 10 minutes, said David Lu, CEO and co-founder of Clarity Movement, an environmental technology company providing air quality monitoring services. In the past two days, the readings have swung between the level where the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups and the level where it\u2019s very unhealthy, Lu said. He said Saturday afternoon he expects to see improvement in the readings within hours because of the rain.<\/p>\n Temperatures are forecast to be around 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius), with light breezes and low humidity for the start of the final.<\/p>\n \u201cYou couldn\u2019t have asked for much better weather for the World Cup,\u201d Berardelli added.<\/p>\n Both Roys and Berardelli expect the heavier smoke Sunday to be concentrated closer to the fires, hanging over parts of the Midwest and the Great Lakes region. The president made no mention of the World Cup final but said on his social media platform, \u201cWe are holding Canada responsible.\u201d He added that the U.S. \u201cis being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air, the quality of which is dangerous, and totally unacceptable!\u201d<\/p>\n Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney addressed the topic of U.S. officials complaining about smoke from during a news conference Thursday. Carney said climate change is the responsibility of everyone, including the United States.<\/p>\n Ford said Canada has contributed to fighting fires in the U.S. and offered assistance when Georgia was hit by a hurricane in 2024 because \u201cthat\u2019s what neighbors do.\u201d Ford called the rhetoric \u201cabsolutely unacceptable\u201d when Canada is \u201ctrying to get through this.\u201d Wildfires have been igniting across Canada and northern Minnesota this month. Berardelli said they are burning longer and faster because of climate change. The Canadian Wildland Fire Information System showed hundreds of active fires Saturday. Environment Canada issued air quality warnings across the country and into the Northwest Territories.<\/p>\n The fires prompted evacuations, including in Nova Scotia where there\u2019s a large fire that local and provincial crews have been fighting since Wednesday, and in northwestern Ontario, where some of the most intense fires are burning.<\/p>\n In Ontario, nearly 200 wildfires have already scorched more land than all of last year\u2019s fires. In Thunder Bay, Ontario, Fire Chief Dave Tarini said this fire season is unprecedented in his more than 35 years as a firefighter.<\/p>\n In British Columbia, about 100 fires are burning, a huge jump from the 20 firefighters were facing Wednesday. The BC Wildfire Service says the fires are largely the result of 4,000 lightning strikes that hit the province Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Smoke from Canadian wildfires that has engulfed the Northeast in haze is expected to mostly clear from the New Jersey area just in time for the World Cup final on Sunday, thanks to thunderstorms passing through the area, meteorologists say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":1525769,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1502,1447],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1525768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abc-heads","category-abc-national-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":true,"date":"2026-07-20 15:55:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[0],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1525768"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1525770,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525768\/revisions\/1525770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1525769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1525768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1525768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1525768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nStorms will help clear the air<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nTrump talks of new tariffs on Canada<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nThere are hundreds of active fires in Canada<\/strong><\/p>\n