U.S. Air Quality

Small smoke plumes across the Southeast; Very Unhealthy PM2.5 in Pacific Northwest

Fires across the southeast were observed again today with several lightly dense smoke plumes emanating (top left, courtesy HMS). Air quality was generally good for most of the nation, except for portions of the Southeast, Great Lake, and Plain states which experienced scattered Code Yellow (Moderate) PM2.5 levels (top right, courtesy AIRNow). Further west, extreme northern Idaho and western Montana reached Code Red (Unhealthy) PM2.5 before 5PM today, before peaking at Code Purple (Very Unhealthy) later in the evening (bottom left). Today's satellite imagery shows the Pacific Northwest swamped with clouds, making it difficult to detect possible smoke areas adjacent to a few fires nearby. NOAA's HPC surface weather analysis also paints quite the colorful picture, as seen by the entanglement of a plethora of surface boundaries and low pressure systems (bottom right).