CHICAGO -- Thick smoke from Canadian wildfires coated Chicago and the surrounding areas with haze as weather officials issued an air quality alert for parts of the Great Lakes, Lower Mississippi and Ohio valleys Tuesday morning.
According to the monitoring site IQAir, Chicago had the worst air quality out of 95 cities worldwide Tuesday.
As of 11 a.m., the air quality index had risen to a level considered “very unhealthy,” according to AirNow, a website that combines data from county, state and federal air quality agencies nationwide. This means everyone is at risk of experiencing health effects.