U.S. Air Quality

Improved Air Quality in the Mid-Atlantic, and North Carolina Fires Continue

A cold front sweeping through the mid-Atlantic and lower humidity levels lead to a much nicer day and improved particulate (PM2.5) air quality, with most monitors in the good (green) to moderate (yellow) range. As reported over the last few days, the North Carolina fires continue and the smoke is now having a big impact over the north Atlantic. The cold front helped move the smoke offshore from the Virginia/Maryland coasts, thus also contributing to the improved air quality there. However, today's MODIS Aqua RGB (left) shows there is still a lot of haze over North Carolina, southeastern VA, and fanning out into the north Atlantic due to transported fire smoke. Because the forecast is for increased southerly winds, this may bring smoke back into our area (the D.C area) after today though. The D.C area, Richmond, VA, Philadelphia (all in the green range for PM2.5 right now), and Atlanta still had code orange conditions though due to sunny conditions and continued relative high temperatures contributing to ozone formation. The map to the right shows the NOAA HMS analysis of today's smoke over North America.