EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) — Smoke from Canadian wildfires that has engulfed the Northeast in haze is expected to mostly clear from the New Jersey area just in time for the World Cup final on Sunday, thanks to thunderstorms passing through the area, meteorologists say.

Warnings of unhealthy air quality remained in effect Saturday across a wide swath of the United States. At MetLife Stadium, where the final is taking place, it rained heavily and thunder boomed. State police urged people to leave the stadium seating bowl and field and take shelter. Volunteers and staff dashed inside for cover as ponchos were handed out. The sky was the same thick, soupy gray it has been for days.

READ MORE: Wildfire smoke from Canada and Minnesota pushes farther into the U.S. and engulfs D.C. in haze

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill warned residents Saturday about the potential for damaging winds, tornadoes, flash flooding and large hail, and flooding caused scattered street closures in New York. Spain’s training session ahead of the final against Argentina was suspended at a field near the stadium because of the storms and lighting in the area. And FIFA said it was in close contact with local authorities as it continues to monitor the impacts from the wildfire smoke and the storms on the conditions on field at MetLife Stadium.

President Donald Trump faulted Canada for the smoke crossing the border and threatened tariffs in response. Ontario Premier Doug Ford said threats from the United States were unacceptable and shortsighted.

Storms will help clear the air

This storm front will largely move the smoke out of the Northeast before the final between Spain and Argentina, said Tyler Roys, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather. MetLife Stadium, which has been renamed the New York/New Jersey Stadium for the matches, is an open-air stadium.

“There could be some lingering smoke that would make things hazy, but very faint,” Roys said. “In terms of the thickest smoke, the smoke that has really been eye-popping and leads to poor air quality, that is not expected across New York City or much of the Northeast.”

Meteorologist says the air quality for the game ‘won’t be dangerous’

WFLA-TV Chief Meteorologist and Climate Specialist Jeff Berardelli, in Tampa, Florida, echoed that, saying the storm front would “sweep the atmosphere clean,” leaving only a thin smoke that World Cup spectators may still smell in the air.

The air quality index shows an improvement from unhealthy air for sensitive groups on Saturday to “moderate” air quality Sunday in East Rutherford, which means little to no health risk for the general public.

“It won’t be dangerous anymore,” Berardelli said. “It’s going to be dramatically better.”

The smoke could still cause issues for people who are sensitive to particulate matter, and they should check the air quality index particularly in the morning, said Rob Shackelford, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel app and weather.com.

Air quality at the field is measured every 10 minutes, said David Lu, CEO and co-founder of Clarity Movement, an environmental technology company providing air quality monitoring services. In the past two days, the readings have swung between the level where the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups and the level where it’s very unhealthy, Lu said. He said Saturday afternoon he expects to see improvement in the readings within hours because of the rain.

READ MORE: What to know about bad air caused by wildfires and how to protect yourself

Temperatures are forecast to be around 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius), with light breezes and low humidity for the start of the final.

“You couldn’t have asked for much better weather for the World Cup,” Berardelli added.

Both Roys and Berardelli expect the heavier smoke Sunday to be concentrated closer to the fires, hanging over parts of the Midwest and the Great Lakes region.

Trump talks of new tariffs on Canada

The president made no mention of the World Cup final but said on his social media platform, “We are holding Canada responsible.” He added that the U.S. “is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air, the quality of which is dangerous, and totally unacceptable!”

WATCH: The health risks of wildfire smoke across the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney addressed the topic of U.S. officials complaining about smoke from during a news conference Thursday. Carney said climate change is the responsibility of everyone, including the United States.

Ford said Canada has contributed to fighting fires in the U.S. and offered assistance when Georgia was hit by a hurricane in 2024 because “that’s what neighbors do.” Ford called the rhetoric “absolutely unacceptable” when Canada is “trying to get through this.”

There are hundreds of active fires in Canada

Wildfires have been igniting across Canada and northern Minnesota this month. Berardelli said they are burning longer and faster because of climate change. The Canadian Wildland Fire Information System showed hundreds of active fires Saturday. Environment Canada issued air quality warnings across the country and into the Northwest Territories.

The fires prompted evacuations, including in Nova Scotia where there’s a large fire that local and provincial crews have been fighting since Wednesday, and in northwestern Ontario, where some of the most intense fires are burning.

In Ontario, nearly 200 wildfires have already scorched more land than all of last year’s fires. In Thunder Bay, Ontario, Fire Chief Dave Tarini said this fire season is unprecedented in his more than 35 years as a firefighter.

In British Columbia, about 100 fires are burning, a huge jump from the 20 firefighters were facing Wednesday. The BC Wildfire Service says the fires are largely the result of 4,000 lightning strikes that hit the province Friday.

McDermott reported from Providence, Rhode Island. AP writer Jim Morris in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Sports Writer Stephen Whyno in New York contributed to this report.

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A meteorite that crashed into a New Jersey home is now considered one of the most scientifically valuable meteorites ever recovered because it contains the building blocks of life, astronomers say.

On July 16, 2024, a meteorite tore through the roof of a home in Hillsborough, New Jersey, shortly after it shook the New York City area with a sonic boom, according to researchers at the SETI Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to exploring the origins of life and searching for extraterrestrial intelligence.

The owner of the house told researchers that he heard a crash and found a hole in the ceiling of the master bedroom. The meteorite had a strong sulfur-like odor and black fragments, debris and dust covered the room.

The meteorite was then preserved by the homeowner using disposable gloves, aluminum foil and glass jars.

“Thanks to the homeowner’s quick reaction, these are the most pristine CM1/2 meteorites we know of,” Mike Zolensky of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, said in a statement.

After observation, scientists learned the meteorite was a CM1/2 carbonaceous chondrite — an exceptionally rare and primitive type of meteorite, according to a paper published in Science Advances on Wednesday.

A forensic study of the meteorite’s fragments showed they preserved bits of a small, primitive asteroid that had once been soaked in concentrated salty fluids, said Peter Jenniskens, a meteor astronomer for NASA and the SETI Institute and lead author of the paper.

A high concentration of salt in briny fluids can create molecules crucial to life on Earth, and scientists said this meteorite contains some of those building blocks of the life.

The “alien world chemistry” found inside Hillsborough, which also contained a diverse suite of carbon-bearing compounds, amino acids and other prebiotic molecules, suggests that these rare types of meteorites may have shaped the organic inventory of the early solar system and brought the materials to Earth that later would support organic life, the astronomers said.

Dubbed “alien world chemistry” by the SETI Institute, the meteorite, called Hillsborough, contains a diverse suite of carbon-bearing compounds, amino acids and other prebiotic molecules. Researchers say this suggests that these rare types of meteorites may have shaped the organic inventory of the early solar system and brought the materials to Earth that later would support organic life.

The meteorite, which was about the size of a heavy airline bag, entered the atmosphere at about 32,000 mph, sending a shockwave through New York and New Jersey. Dozens of observers in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania reported seeing the meteor to the American Meteor Society.

American Meteor Society cameras in Northford, Connecticut, and Douglassville, Pennsylvania, captured an image of the meteor, as did a doorbell camera in Wayne, New Jersey, Mike Hankey, operations manager at the AMS, said in a statement.

“The path traced back to low in the asteroid belt,” Hankey said.

The fragile rock broke into several pieces, the researchers said. Doppler weather radar at Newark Liberty International Airport detected a long cloud of pebbles falling from Staten Island to New Jersey.