The wildfires in canada blanketed a good portion of the US in thick smoke. That same wind distribution will cover large areas in radioactive fallout. Those blasts will come with large fires too.
The media can't be trusted, but nuclear winter is a real threat given the fact that dozens, if not hundreds, of nukes go off evenly spaced accross the continent.
I would disagree with some of that. 1) most strikes would be airbursts, which would really in minimal fallout. Only anti counterstrike capability strikes would be at ground level. 2) The nuclear Winter hypothesis doesn't seem to be consistent with empirical days. Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 shot over 1 cubic mile of debris into the stratosphere. The result was a slightly cooler summer for 1 year in the northern hemisphere. 29,000 square miles of fuel dense forest burned in Canada this year with no perceptible impact on even regional temperatures. Further, the world is 70 percent ocean, with few to no strategic targets in the southern hemisphere. So the part of the world that is burning will be a relatively minor fraction of the total surface. Finally, there is no longer a need to "pound the rubble" with multi-megaton weapons for to missile inaccuracy. Through the mid 80s high value targets would be targeted by multiple huge weapons because the accuracy of the delivery system couldn't guarantee a hit. Now, weapons are much lower yield because the platforms carrying them can get them close enough to the target to guarantee destruction. That will significantly limit the extent of fires.
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