Rain Is Coming to Help Fight Canadian Wildfires

Rain could soon provide relief for the firefighters fighting back flames from some 400 blazes across Canada, whose smoke and particulates have darkened skies throughout the eastern U.S., NPR reported.

But meteorologists say it's unclear whether there will be enough rainfall to put a significant dent in the wildfires, especially in Quebec, the site of the country's largest blazes.

Precipitation is expected to reach northern Quebec by Tuesday, delivering 10 to 20 millimeters of water across the region, Gerald Cheng, a meteorologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada, told NPR.

The fear is that rain sometimes brings lightning, which can paradoxically fuel more fires.

The Canadian wildfires have so far burned roughly 7.4 million acres of land, an area equivalent to the size of Maryland. The country is already set to break its record for the most damaging wildfire season, with 12 times the average amount of land burned at this point in the year.

The fires were fueled in part by especially high temperatures in May, according to Copernicus Climate Change Service. That unusually warm weather combined with lower-than-average rainfall to create "kind of a perfect storm," Mark Zondlo, an atmospheric chemist at Princeton told CNN.

Quebec alone has seen 1.86 million acres of land burned so far this year across 449 fires, up from an average of 5,469 acres at this point in the year.

Despite a brief respite from the rain, the severity of fires across much of Canada is projected to be "well-above average" in both July and August, per the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System, potentially sending more waves of smoke into the U.S.