A burst of toxin-laced “dirty rain” is expected to soak New York City on Saturday, briefly dragging soot and ash out of the smoky air left behind by Canadian wildfires — but forecasters say the messy spell should not last long.
“There’s a lot of smoke and particulate matter in the air, so as we get rainfall, those water droplets are going to pick up some soot, some ash, and bring that to the ground,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist John Feerick told The Post on Friday.
“At least initially, you’re probably gonna have a little bit of dirty spots or soot on cars and stuff like that.
“But it’s going to be relatively short-lived,’’ he said. “The heavy downpours that we get will just wash that away.”
Feerick said the grimy rainfall itself is not the biggest worry. The stronger threat, he noted, is the powerful summer storm system expected to sweep into the New York City area with it.
Thunderstorms and potentially damaging winds are in the forecast through Saturday night, with some gusts possibly climbing to 65 mph.
Rainfall rates could reach up to 2 inches per hour during the heaviest downpours.
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“The greater concern is going to be flooding downpours, localized flash flooding,’’ the meteorologist said.
“Streets in New York — you know how they get as far as streets filling up with water pretty fast.’’
The storm is set to roll through the five boroughs in the mid- to late-morning Saturday — when the air quality is expected to spike close to “very unhealthy” levels.
The precipitation, having been hovering in the toxic air, will drag down the dust, soot, metals and other minuscule toxins that traveled hundreds of miles from the Canadian wildfires to the metro area.
The initial rain will leave dirty remnants along the streets and cars, but the following rounds of rain will quickly wash the filth away, Feerick said.
The wet, damp front will move out of the Big Apple on Saturday night, and the humidity will plummet by Sunday morning.
Sunshine is also predicted for the tail end of the weekend.
“It doesn’t look like we’ll have the air quality issues that we’ve had,’’ Feerick said. “It looks like Sunday is going to be a pretty nice finish to the weekend.’’
