york s iconic landmarks blanketted in this reddish brown. this is not just a health problem. the blinding conditions led to a ground stop at laguardia s airport. big sporting events and broadway shows canceled. others canceled all outdoor activity. take a look at this time lapse of new york city in the skyline turning dark orange in a matter of minutes. in a few hours as waves of smoke continue to pour down from canada. atheen athena jones, our colleague is outside masked up. it got worse since you joined us on the show. what about today? it s still at an unhealthy level for sensitive groups.
disease. the best protection is avoid being outside until the air clears. officials warning the smoke will continue to impact much of the east coast until at least th e weekend. with that in mind, while they expect conditions to improve by this weekend, that doesn t mean it won t happen again. as one of our cnn meteorologists put it this is something we could deal with off and out throughout the remainder of the summer. fire season is just beginning in canada. poppy? wow. off and on through the remainder of the summer. thank you very much. i know it s not easy conditions being out there for you and your team. we appreciate the reporting. we want to drill in a little bit on what athena is saying. we want to bring in eric vandam for the latest forecast.
i think the biggest question across the east coast, when is relief coming? yeah. phil, you know, it is all dependent on the wind direction. right? where it s bad for somebody today, it s going to be worse for somebody else tomorrow, depending on exactly that wind direction. so, this morning we are waking as athena noted, some improvement on the visibility. of course, still hazardous air in new york city. look at philadelphia. just over a mile of visibility. more the same for washington, d.c. and, you know what? we already talked about this. this is incredible to note. new york city topping the list of the most polluted major cities across the entire planet right now as of 5:55. we just updated that. so what is this air quality index? this is the epa, the environmental protection agency s way of communicating to you and i the quality of the air that we breathe. it uses the color codes to help convey that message and it also explains to groups how they may be impacted. if we re talking