U.S. Air Quality

Moderate PM2.5 AQI in California; Smoke over the Gulf of Mexico; Asian dust over Central United States

According to Airnow PM2.5 AQI animation (top left figure), only California experienced Moderate PM2.5 concentrations. NOAA's HMS reported the presence of dust, possibly Asian in origin, over Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska and the Pacific Northwest. An area of remnant smoke was observed across portions of southeast Texas and confined close to the Gulf of Mexico coastline. It is likely that area of remnant smoke extends further east across western portions of the western Gulf of Mexico. The presence of these particles over this location was forecast by NRL NAAPS product (bottom right image). The NASA Terra AOD (top right image) retrieval along the west coast show the presence of Asian dust, while those over the Gulf of Mexico are due to the smoke from the agricultural fires along the Yucatan region (bottom right image). Locations where fires are active are indicated in red in the "rgb" image.