Hazy skies keep our highs cooler, but still above normal for this time of year.

Smoky skies return, but not as bad as last time

Q13 Forecaster Erin Mayovsky explains how long wildfire smoke could linger in Western Washington.

SEATTLE - Even though smoke and haze from fires burning in Northern California are invading our air space again, air quality is still in the "good to moderate" zone. High haze above is limiting how warm our temperatures across much of Western WA will climb. Wednesday's highs only in landing in the mid 70s, but without the smoke we would've seen temps pushing into the upper 70s to low 80s. Here's how we finished today:

For the next several days we can expect more of the same forecast as the ridge that's hanging out over us will stay put through the end of the week.Smoke will continue to linger into early Friday morning and then lift and clear out some for a nice day. Our clear skies will be short lived as models are hinting a return of haze through the weekend. And that brings up the question of air quality for the Sounders FC as they are set to host a huge rivalry match-up with the Vancouver, Whitecaps in town. Right now our AQI for the 7pm kick off from CenturyLink Field is predicted to be in the "good to moderate" zone, ranging from 50-100 pollutant rating. And those numbers are still in the safe zone for the teams to play. Stay tuned as a smoke forecast is very difficult to predict that far out.

The rest of the week will feature partly sunny days with temps in the mid to low 70s. (Haze too) And as we look ahead to the weekend and next week... highs will fall off a bit, but still remain really nice, staying above our seasonal average of 66. Most of us will live in the upper 60s. Overnights will be mild too, cooling to the mid to upper 50s. Normal is 49 for this time of year.

At this point we are keeping an eye out for the first real rain of October, which looks like late next week.