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Smoke from wildfires clouds Western New York skies over the weekend

Vogan, David

<p>This picture was taken by a polar-orbiting satellite in space, courtesy of NOAA and NASA. </p>

Posted at 1:17 PM, Aug 20, 2018

and last updated 2018-08-20 13:17:48-04

There's a reason as to why the sky in Western New York looked milky over the weekend.

Smoke from wildfires thousands of miles away clouded much of the area.

The smoke billowed up thousands of feet into the sky and was carried by the jet stream to here in our backyard.

The above photo was taken Saturday by a NASA satellite orbiting the earth. You can see clouds that look wispy and transparent. Meteorologists over at the National Weather Service were able to determine that this was smoke using a satellite.

Can you tell the difference between smoke from wildfires and cirrus clouds? They look similar on Visible satellite and that is why Meteorologists use other satellite channels such as Infrared to tell the difference. Can you tell the difference between smoke and cirrus clouds? pic.twitter.com/uY26lxyBxJ
— NWS Buffalo (@NWSBUFFALO) August 18, 2018