U.S. Air Quality

Smoke over the northern plains, probably over the Gulf of Mexico and first tropical depression of the season over the Atlantic

The SSD fire team at NOAA and today’s HMS map (top, left) show a thin smoke plume over the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and Northern Wyoming. Some haze is, in deed, visible on today’s MODIS TERRA RGB map (top, right) over the Southern part of North Dakota. The smoke is probably too thin to lead to any strong MODIS TERRA AOD values.
The air quality is “good” over the area although there’s a lack of PM monitoring stations in South Dakota and Nebraska on the EPA AIRNow’s PM2.5 map (bottom, left). On another hand, air conditions are reported at the most “unhealthy for sensitive groups” over the Georgia-South Carolina border, Pennsylvania and Southern California. The latter area also shows “unhealthy for sensitive groups” ozone levels.

The second aerosol plume on the HMS map in southern Texas and the Gulf of Mexico is not visible on the MODIS RGB image due to strong cloud cover but could be the reason for fairly strong MODIS TERRA and GASP AOD values.

Finally, let’s note the first tropical depression of the season called “one” that has formed in the Atlantic, off the Carolina coast (bottom, right).