Yankee Stadium looks apocalyptic blanketed in thick smoke from Canadian wildfires

On top of the myriad health and safety concerns, the scene in New York City and much of New York state on Wednesday was spooky as smoke haze from Canadian wildfires enveloped the city. So intense is the haze that Yankee Stadium — where a game between the New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox is scheduled for 7:05 p.m. EST — looks like an apocalyptic scene.

The smoke plume, emanating from a number of wildfires in Quebec, is concentrated over New York state and city as it drifts south and is then blown eastward by prevailing winds. New York City is right in the middle of the path of the plume as it heads over the Atlantic Ocean.

All told, haze and smoke from the fires is affecting an area that stretches from Texas to the mid-Atlantic and north Florida to Hudson Bay. Yankees’ in-house producer Nick Tyrell shared his view of the effects.

This doesn’t feel real tbh pic.twitter.com/doIUWSrGOw

— Nick Tyrell (@nicktyrell) June 7, 2023

A video shared by Newsday’s Yankees beat writer Eric Boland pans through an empty, hazy Yankee Stadium.

And scene inside Yankee Stadium… pic.twitter.com/ocPBsPk0ZB

— Erik Boland (@eboland11) June 7, 2023

Air quality in the city has reached the worst levels on record on Wednesday afternoon, according to The New York Times, and people are being advised not to leave their homes unless absolutely necessary. If someone does need to go outside, they are being advised to use a sufficient mask to filter the air, such as an N95 mask.

According to AirNow, a federal air quality monitoring service, the AQI (air quality index) for New York City is in the “very unhealthy” range, rating between 201 and 300 points on the AQI scale. On Wednesday afternoon, the AQI for parts of New York — namely Queens and The Bronx, where Yankee Stadium is — rose into the “hazardous” range at 301 points or higher.

The highest current reading in the U.S., according to AirNow, is just south of Binghamton, New York, around 150 miles from New York City. The AQI there is at 460.

The National Weather Service station in Binghamton posted some photos earlier in the day of the orange-hue skies. The smoke and cloud cover is so thick that it’s keeping temperatures down by blocking out solar radiation.

9:45 AM at NWS Binghamton. Sun is no longer visible, everything's orange, the parking lot lights have come on, and we're stuck at 50°F. pic.twitter.com/Ibu2oE2af5

— NWS Binghamton (@NWSBinghamton) June 7, 2023

The Yankees and White Sox played on Tuesday night as conditions worsened, but the current state of the air quality in The Bronx and around Yankee Stadium doesn’t appear tenable for a baseball game.

There has been no official word from MLB on if the hazardous air quality will postpone Wednesday’s game.