U.S. Air Quality

Smoke and Saharan dust in different regions persist

The air quality was moderate and unhealthy for sensitive groups in different regions throughout the day. The most critical regions were the Mid-Atlantic, the Great Lakes and the California State (top left). The Mid-Atlantic particularly experienced severe heat causing adverse AQI and visibility. According to HMS, smoke from wildfires continuing to burn across much of Northwest Territories and northern Alberta/Sasketchewan are producing a large area of smoke moving across all of central Canada into the Northern/Central Plains and east into the northern/central Mississippi Valley, Upper Great Lakes region and currently moving into the Ohio, Tennessee and the Lower Mississippi Valley. The thickest area of smoke stretches across a large section of central/eastern Northwest Territories with a moderately dense section over S Alberta and Saskatchewan and south into NE Montana, W North Dakota, most of South Dakota and into SW Minnesota and NW Iowa. High AOD levels were retrieved not only in the previously mentioned areas, but also in the Rocky Mountains states and in the Gulf of Mexico most likely to be a mixture of smoke and dust from Sahara (middle). Monterrey Aerosol Modeling shows Sulfate belt extending from northeast to the Gulf of Mexico and Saharan dust reaching Florida and Central and South America (bottom).