U.S. Air Quality

Moderate PM2.5 Air Quality Continues in the East; Smoke Over the Pacific Northwest

PM2.5 continued in the Code Yellow (Moderate) range across much of the eastern U.S., while ozone readings remained Code Green (Good) throughout the nation, as shown in today’s loops of AQI values (PM2.5 below on left; ozone below on right; images courtesy of AIRNow).

NOAA’s Hazard Mapping System (HMS) Fire and Smoke Product (below on upper left) shows smoke plumes across western Canada and the Pacific Northwest; these plumes originated from fires in Canada that we have been tracking on the Blog for the past week. The smoke is evident in today’s MODIS Aqua true color image of northwest Washington state (below on upper right, overlaid with AQI values in Google Earth; courtesy of UW MODIS Today), although it does not appear to be impacting air quality at the surface. AOD readings were elevated from the smoke, as shown in the MODIS Terra AOD image for Region 10 (below on lower left; courtesy of NOAA-NESDIS IDEA). The National Weather Service’s vertical integrated smoke forecast (below on lower right) indicates that the smoke will likely persist over the Seattle, WA/Victoria, BC/Puget Sound area for at least the next 24 hours.