CHICAGO — Did you find your car cloaked in a layer of dust this Wednesday morning?
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The dusty surprise is linked to environmental conditions unfolding to the south and west, explained Larry Mowry, meteorologist for ABC7 Chicago.
Strong southwest winds have swept dust, smoke, and ash from wildfires raging in Oklahoma into the Chicago area.
These particles have ascended into the atmosphere, playing a crucial role in the formation of raindrops.
Raindrops are created when water vapor condenses on tiny particles such as dust, smoke, or dirt.
The rainfall on Tuesday night, infused with a significant amount of smoke and dust from Oklahoma, contained more particulate matter than usual.
Alberto Aguiñaga says he was driving home Tuesday night, when he first realized his windshield wipers were just not doing their job.
“Why they not getting clean with my windshield fluid, you know? That’s what really got in my mind. What’s going on?” Aguiñaga said.
On Wednesday afternoon, drier air is pushing into the area with gusty southwest winds; that’s led to the fire weather concerns through the day.
“It was awful. I don’t know what was up with the weather, never seen dirty rain like that before,” Jimmy Horne said.
Car washes across the city are doing some of their briskest business ever.
“I knew it was going to be an issue when I woke up this morning and I seen my car. Cause my car, I literally washed it yesterday. And when I got outside, it literally threw a bucket of dirt on it,” Jaelen Jenkins said.
And yet, nothing could have prepared Jenkins for what greeted him when he got to work.
“We had a line down 95th for a majority of the day. It’s been pretty insane. We did 221 cars between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. I have absolutely no idea where we are right now,” Jenkins said.
The good news for vehicle owners is there is no more rain in the forecast Wednesday. So, that car wash clean should last, at least for now.
Oklahoma’s Ranger Road Fire is the largest and is now a megafire: It exploded in size and has burned at least 145,000 acres in Oklahoma and Kansas since starting early Tuesday afternoon. That’s about the size of Chicago.
Another wildfire that broke out in Woodward, Oklahoma – a city of about 12,000 residents in northwestern part of the state – forced several thousand people to evacuate in the southwest quadrant of the city, the Woodward County emergency manager, Matt Lehenbauer, told CNN affiliate KOCO. Most of these evacuation orders were lifted by late Tuesday.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt declared a disaster emergency for Beaver, Texas and Woodward counties on Wednesday, to activate state emergency management resources. Stitt had also requested air assets from Texas to help battle the fires, but it was too windy to fly, the governor said.
The CNN-Wire contributed to this report.
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