U.S. Air Quality

Broad area of remnant smoke impacting Central/Southern Plains & Northeast

The HMS analysis team reports several large regions of remnant smoke across the US caused from numerous wildfires burning in the Southwest (top left). Today's MODIS AOD image superimposed with RGB and NWS's large fire incident report indicates elevated AOD near and east of the persistent Little Bear New Mexico wildfire and recently burning High Park Colorado wildfire (top right). According to reports from the Denverpost, the High Park fire encompasses over 41,000 acres already with zero containment. The flames are believed to have started over the weekend due to a lightning strike from powerful storms that moved through the area.The MODIS sensor aboard NASA's AQUA satellite captured the impressive billows of smoke emanating from the quickly spreading fires yesterday (middle left). The upper level low pressure system that Ray mentioned in the previous post will continue to induce strong lower-level wind flow over the northern plain states as it progressing eastward towards the Great Lakes states (middle right, courtesy NOAA NWS). While it is likely that some of the smoke will be hauled east as the result of this weather system, NAAPS Aerosol forecasts suggest high smoke surface concentrations will linger over the Southwest and Plain states through the end of the week (bottom left). In terms of air quality, scattered Moderate to Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups PM2.5 AQI were experienced across the Southwest, Plain and Southeast states.