More than 120 million Americans are now under ‘very unhealthy’ air quality alerts, with Chicago, Cleveland, Maryland and Pittsburgh the worst affected.
Smoke from Canada‘s raging wildfires have drifted south over the past few days leaving dozens of states in the north east of the country under a thick smog.
A Code Red alert, a warning of unhealthy air, was issued for much of the Midwest and Washington DC on Wednesday.
Several cities across Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Iowa were also experiencing ‘very unhealthy air’ according to AirNow.
The National Weather Service has warned that, with no end in sight to the Canadian wildfires, poor air quality is likely to continue.
It comes amid fears that the smoke could compound already ongoing travel chaos over the July 4 weekend.
According to the World Air Quality Index, there are now five cities in the US that make up the ten worst places for air quality on Earth.
Chicago is currently ranked as the worst city, with an air quality of 166, while Washington DC takes the third spot with a reading of 151.
Minneapolis is currently recording an air quality of 111, Detroit is just below it with 107 and New York City follows with a reading of 98.
According to an online calculator created via Berkeley University, it was found that an AQI score of 64 translates to one cigarette smoked in a 24-hour period.
Based on those calculations, people in Chicago are currently smoking 2.5 cigarettes every day due to the smoke.
