Pam moore, it is all everybody is talking about today the orange red skies alacross the bay area that blow thanks to the wildfire smoke drifting across our area blocking out the sun, heres what it looks like right now you see the upper lefthand corner ats the Richmond Sandra fell bridge toll plaza. The right hand corner at the top the san mateo bridge. The lower right corner 6. 80 in walnut creek and the left lower corner, the bay bridge toll plaza and every place has that orange haze in the sky kron 4 seed meteorologist Lawrence Karnow joins us now with the forecast lawrence how long could this be with us when you thought twentytwenty couldnt get any more strange here we go but. That smoke is going to be with us for a bit now remember were talking about. That offshore wind yesterday that north northeasterly wind we had a couple of to our north we had won the bear fire there near paradise where we had a fire there that provide a lot of smoke in the bay area a few years back also the august complex to the north near Mendocino County also that smoke coming down from those areas overnight pushing into the bay area and then we woke up this morning and smoke where were so deep and so thick actually preventing a lot of the sunshine from get into the ground and thats why of fact were going to see more of that smoke kind of filtering in tonight but i think were beginning to see a change now in the overall pattern so we saw late in the day a little improvement as the skies begin to clear just a tad i we head toward the next couple days not to be able to tnk things will begin to improve in all show you why High Pressure that brought that offshore wind is starting to weekend that weve got another ridge of High Pressure starts to build in from the south no the circulation around that is that a clockwise circulation you can see the wind pattern is set to get it offshore wind you get more of a westerly component to the wind so hopefully that will be just enough to begin to shift gears a little bit but this is a tough call. This is not very strong. This rich selling in tomorrow, so looks like it should be some improving air quality right now boy it is just something looks like like youre sitting on mars right now around the bay area this looking from the Berkeley Hills all the orange all that the smoke out there. Luckily so far not all that is mixed to the surface most that has been about 2000 feet above sea, the air quality as and suffered all the way down certainly concern should that makes all the way down the surface we could be talking about some extremely poor air quality all around the area. Thank you lawrence, the haze was particularly bad in San Francisco. Where that orange glow stuck around all day long its still out there the morning commute. Look more like the evening commute residents starting their day under black skies and even though it looked and felt like night in many parts of the bay area we still have to step out there and continue with our day as best we could with these strange condition has come for Maureen Kelly was in San Francisco today where she got reaction from people who are out and about in these conditions. T during roadwork on front street had to work with their lights on it looks like dawn in this video, but it was really 11 00am check out the transamerica building in the background surrounded by a sky, the color of a rotting orange peel out on market street, the Ferry Building is also set against a dusty backdrop. Tmuni drivers usually drive with their lights on during the day today they needed to. Construction workers on their lunch break if their sandwiches in the glow of the lit up banks, im over at Civic Center People stretching their legs during the noon hour stopped to snap pictures of city hall. In this surreal setting marveling at the strange circumstances, were finding ourselves in today kind of maybe a light once in a lifetime sort of. The data experience the. The night time during the day and this guy bright orange. Theyre born to a farming never quite like this, but i love that was like. They moved us to mars and not tell nobody almost been in San Francisco in the street lights are some the skies tend to are incorrect. Is it start. Not all the street lights are on at least in the parks, some are on timers. But there are others like the ones you see here that operate on because the darkness is triggering em making them think its nighttime ive been working out in this weather all day as well and id say the one. A piece of the good news is that here in the city at least im not smelling any smoke in the air. But it has been dark and hard to see sometimes. So much so i actually had a break out my trusty headlamp just to get some work done. Reporting from san frkelly kron the south bay where the normally sunkist Santa Clara Valley is anything but today in fact couldnt even see the sun at all unhealthy air tends to collect at the south end of the valley toward gilroy the summertime but this is different the sun has been blotted out in the entire valley is gray with smoke. And ash kron fours rob fladeboe joins us live now from some high ground above downtown san jose rob. Thats right. Pam and ken im here to please call church on the hill which overlooks the valley over my right shoulder, you can perhaps make out the skyline there of downtown san jose and then over my Left Shoulder here you can see that is so dark know that all of the traffic coming up out of downtown san jose here on highway 87 while they all have their lights ron as i its a couple of hours lar been that way valley today, lets take a look. A flock of turkey, vultures against an orange sun only added to the eerie mars like skies over the south bay wednesday. From gilroy palo alto gray skies persistent all day from the East Foothills jose just a few miles distant is barely visible. Thats the to 8681 o one interchange close downtowns santa clara street feels like or dawn. Looking west into the tains t darker still. Thats highway 17 as from above los gatos. Heres a look at morgan hill from a top anderson dam. On the road many people their on indeed the sky looking like rain might be on the way. But whats falling is not rain but rather soot and ash if the pandemic board bad enough, those masks now performing double tysome relief from the smoke. Eerie images amid an orange sun that made a brief if mostly obscured appearance only to van hayes. And just to add a note or 2 to marine was talking about earlier im standing here overlooking a neighborhood down here and im seeing a light supports lights, the security light some street lights popping on obviously of these lights think that its later than it is live in san jose rob fladeboe kron 4 news rob. Thank you meantime in the north bay, those orange with th for thousands of people in napa and sonoma counties after pg e shut off the electricity. Early Tuesday Morning due to fears that the high winds could damage equipment and spark a utility has made considerable progress restoring power in fact 41 point of 41. 5 of customers in napa county have been restored in Sonoma County 99 of the nearly 18,000 customers have the lights back on kron fours dan kerman is live in santa rosa right now with the latest dan. Thats right. Theyre making considerable progress in terms of restoring that power in terms of the skies theyve been. Very orange at times than moving back to white now orange kind of dark in right now. For the most part people have been concerned about both day in Sonoma County. Those orange skies prevented pg and e inspectors from taking to the air to inspect power lines until about 00 30pm in the afternoon wednesday, still inspectors the ground crisscross the county and by lunchtime half of sonoma unty was back online. We definitely have done a lot of work over this pt year to make these events not only smaller impact, your customers but shorter get speed up the restoration time in the helicopters and an additional boots on the ground has definitely helped stock. That was welcome news for many businesses fail one of all can use a a c i can use a lot of cindy tran says even with the generator she lost half or salon business on tuesday and urban pizza next or a generator allowed them to keep all their Products School during the outage. But they fear theres more to come. That this is whats going to happen through november. It becomes ridiculous i i reall wish pg e had put money into infrastructure to protect us and it wasnt just businesses that got generators this time it was also homeowners. Last year candidate isnt so thats why we were pretty a handful this year. Because we think its Something Like this would be going lines. But for many this outage took a back seat to these orange skies, this is like living on one of those planets from star wars. I kind of miss the blue but i i hope i hope to see this again so i might as well enjoy it. Whili have the chance. Back live in santa rosa. We can tell you that pg called this p s p s for various reasons, including excessive winds. Pg e says they did clock wind gusts of 65 Miles Per Hour in parts of Sonoma County. During this outage reporting live in santa rosa k you dan. Our coverage of the wild fire and the smoke continues at kron dot com there you can see a timeline of before and after photographs from around the bay area as as a gallery of pictures sent to us by viewers and full forecast to track air quality. It is all at kron 4 dot com and coming up at 5 were monitoring the air quality and the smoky skies all across our area well take a look at different sections of the bay and where the air quality is the worst on the lets show you how it looks right now at the approach to the center fell bridge in richmond and its in 2 in coverage of our top story tonight bay area skies shrouded in that red orange haze all day long due to the wildfires burning across california frto santa rosa to w the images have been ominous certainly surreal kron fours Justine Waldman is live in the newsroom with a closer look testing well, pam and ken the skies of an eerie all across the bay area since we woke up this morning and weve been seeing some incredible pictures onsoso lets start now in San Francisco. These pictures taken around 11 oclock this morning by kron trouble, the Transamerica Pyramid surrounding areas just drowning in that red orange hue it was a similar story along the embarcadero heres a shot of the Ferry Building as well as the bay bridge ow how crazy looking the skies were this morning. It was wild. Now lets move to the east bay, this video urken around 9 oclock this morning from crown beach in alamedao he able to make out the entire peninsula and the San Francisco city skyline but not today can barely see in front of you and heres another video that was taken by one of our producers as they were heading into work to showing us how kind of dangerous the dri is was early in the morning and this mmute on w here is also how the oakland estuary looked thismorning. The reflection there showing us just how creepy the skies are the red here in the skies reports from people in below neighborhoods in berkeley and the same situation in richmond where the skies just it when it was captured in a photograph, but in real life it orange and yellow t now lets over to here hapns to belong to kron 4 anchor grant lotus this was his cared in ash lot of people that with a very similar situation when they went out so they could start their commute. We also received videos from one of our viewers in mill valley you the trees helping to hovering create this red orange hue in the sky. We also got some great images from nevado and youll see in this ptuhow red tt showing that red onge haze all are and how marine county ca barely make out mount tam rithere as well as seeing a lot of that was on the ground covering big chunks of the bay area today all the wayrom santa rosa to san jose dealing with this and keep those pictures coming in you can send them to us here in the newsroom at breaking news at kron 4 dot com. We have a whole gallery on our website about of your pictures that have been covering coming in. You can check that out on our website kron 4 dot com for now live in the newsroom. Im Justine Waldman kron 4 news just seen thank you such an eerie feeling, this guys are creating for all of us this take another live look outside now you can barely see anything this is a nation. Though of fog and smoke looking out over San Francisco its hard to tell what youre looking at now lets check in with our chief meteorologist Lawrence Karl or is it is kind of tricky to try to tell the difference between fog and smoke when its just kind all mixed in together is and thats a problem now were starting to see some of that mix senior scenes that ash kind of precipitated fall out of some of the smoke cloud. Up above and thats been shown up a lot of the cars colo simply on real never seen anything like this in the bay area before orange skies all around since this morning. And it continues out there right now weve seen a little bit of influx in that sea breeze and that has brought with it the low clouds and fog and that has helped with some of the air quality can certainly if we didnt have that at all there be some major problems now heres look at fog as you look toward the Golden Gate Bridge you see that making its way through the bridge right now the low deck out there again looks like more dense fog overnight tonight. Ince tomorrow morning. Air quality the other spots that are very good you can see the areas in orange there just kind of popping up around the bay area one spot in downtown San Francisco looking okay well not far away weve got moderate amounts of clues in the yellow and you see the spot. These are observation points in around the bay area showing in 2 different areas where were seei the smoke right now so certainly smoke is a concern and it that way, although i think its going to slowly improve the next couple of days, the winds instead of getting that offshore wind that north northeast wind were going to start to be more of a sea breeze little more westerly component and that should begin to improve the air quality around the bay area so maybe not quite as large as we head in towartomorrow were talking about some poor quality overall in the north bay also the east bay and the south bay modern along the coastline probably improving again toward the afternoon with that sea breeze picking up but here we go we have the trouble we had that offshore wind were worried about fire danger in the bay area. The offshore wind ironically didnt bring us the fires but brought of smoke from other fires in northern california, the bear fire. The august complex to the north that moving down into the bay area but now things begin to switch gears started to see more sterl as High Pressure begins to build up out of the south and that will be the trend coming our way so the sea breeze is blowing right now and that is some good news. We like to get that air off the ocean that gives us have a nice fresh air westerly wind to 14 Miles Per Hour in a San Francisco, 13 in the valley 15 into fairfield calm though in parts of the northeast not see much mixing there and thats somewhat of a concern 70 degrees in livermore 70 in dublin right now the smoke team is so thick today in knocked down the forecast and temperatures by a good 20 degrees. By what was being forecast that was Pretty Amazing now tomorrow. I think well see a little relief from the smoke likely going to see those temperatures pop up just a little bit 80s inland still much cooler than what we had some 70s maybe a few 80s around the bay youve got some 60s out toward the coast. All right laura has more from you later in the newscast, the unusual color of the sky is certainly a visual attraction, however it can also be a dangerous distraction when you are behind the wheel of a car. So there is a warning tonight from the california Highway Patrol kron fours Haaziq Madyun reports. You are looking at before and after photos taken tuesday and wednesday showing the smokefilled morning sky above San Francisco. The dark red color from wildfire smoke blocking out the sun instantly grabbed your attention. People are you look at all over the place you know theyre going to be looking at the red guy theyre going to be looking at that thinking about that looking everywhere but on the road. That is the dangerous hazard. The california Highway Patrol wants bay area drivers to avoid as you can see from the chp traffic incident page the day got off to a busy start says officer brandon korea. With the decrease visibility. You know people are not paying attention doesnt look very different than your normal cant help but look at it and wonder about it, buwhen youre driving want to make your focus on your driving he warns drivers to resist the temptation of trying to take photos of the sky while theyre behind the wheel. Dont be distracted and trying to take this great selfie of yourself driving with the bread some in the background but i think the time to do when youre driving right because the consequences he says could deadly. Look ahead of us can sense and that will help you prevent a collision or some catastrophic thing that you do not want to happen in fact in these conditions the california Highway Patrol advises following the same rules of the road when driving at night. By putting on the headlights which is like driving in the rain flowed out. Another thing to remember is what it looks like this in the sky it probably looks like this on your windshield. All the apps on your on your car all the smoke and the decreased visibility if your car before you leave your windshield dismiss anything were talking about is about faith he has it made you kron 4 news. Today, San Francisco mayor london breed shared her reaction to the smoky orange skies across the bay area she says over the next couple of days. It could get worse. Like everyonewoke up today to dark skies outside my window. I know people might be confuse they might be scare. This is really like nothing weve ever see. We are tracking this very closely and we will continue to share information as we learn more. Heres what we know is happening right now. This is due to wildfires burning throughout the entire west. There are multiple layers, a small high up in the air from these fires. It hasnt really impacted our air quality yet because of our marine layer and because the smoke is so high. In fact air quality is yellow, though of course this could change if the winds weekend. They gravity takes over. And the smoke could come could get even darker than it is now. So please dont be alarmed we will keep everyone updated as we learn more. The best thing we can all do is stay calm and stay informed. When youre out take extra precautions to walk safely and drive safely, including turning on your headlights due to the reduced visibility. This is yet another challenge for us in a really tough year. Still ahead as wildfires burn up and down the west coast california now forced to compete with other states for fire resources and another live look outside tonight at the bay bridge toll plaza looking east and you can see very little beyond the the actual drive c firefighters across california are stretched thin after dozens of fires popped up overnight and believe it or not on top of that. Theyre now facing even more challenges as they try to bring in help from out of the sate our Capitol Bureau reporter azavala explains these latest developments. After 15 new wildfire sparked in california firefighters are stretching even thinner as they work to contain hundreds of active wildfires other west coast are burning to some that usually help californias extreme fire fight were all pecific resources. Land fires, so it does provide a challenge its a challenge to all the states that are being affected right now callawas chief Brian Marshall says even a few weeks ago as the state second and 3rd largest wildfires burn simultaneously c of the out of state fire engines. It requested do federal programs for now marshall says crews from idaho, new mexico, texas and utah are helping california on the frontlines requests or into any and all available states state leaders wednesday asking for help as far as quebec all of this was still months left in fire season with possibly even more extreme fire danger. Its going be more houses destroyed more people impacted. As we go into that fall fire season. Have great concerns. To be able meet the demand that we have here in california state Emergency Management hoping to quickly meet the critical mand scorching the sta now in sacramento, Ashley Zavala kron 4 news. Coming up next our wildfire coverage continues with the bear fire that one is burning