United States air quality website - AirNow.gov

[elagache]

Dear WeatherCat enthusiasts,

In the western parts of the United States, hurricanes can produce an unexpected threat: wild fires.  Over the weekend, remnants from Eastern Pacific cyclonic storms set off dry lightning strikes, starting numerous fires.  Smoke from some of these fires greatly degraded the air quality in our area and our local police sent us a warning.  In the message, they referenced a website that was new to me anyway: AirNow.gov

www.AirNow.gov

Here is a link with more information about the site:

https://www.airnow.gov/about-airnow/

According to that page: "AirNow is a partnership of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Park Service, NASA, Centers for Disease Control, and tribal, state, and local air quality agencies."  It further states: "AirNow reports air quality using the official U.S. Air Quality Index (AQI), a color-coded index designed to communicate whether air quality is healthy or unhealthy for you. "

It seems useful enough to me that I've added it to my collection of bookmarks. 

Cheers, Edouard 

P.S. I've attached a GOES-West satellite photo of California this afternoon.  Thanks in part to the improved imaging of the latest generation of weather satellites you can see how much of the state is burning and how far the smoke is spreading.

[Blicj11]

Thanks for this interesting post, Edouard. We've had well over 1,000 wildfires in Utah this summer, the vast majority of which are human caused. One fire in the valley below our place was caused by some eejits who were shooting rifles at exploding targets in the midst of our drought. The explosion ignited the dry grass and within a few hours 400 acres were aflame. People like that, who are too dumb to function responsibly, should be required to stay in their parents basement until the Second Coming. Safer for everybody.

[elagache]

Dear WeatherCat observers of our very changing skies,

Luckily, Northern California was spared another nasty round of dry lightning from the remnants of hurricane Genevieve.  However, the smoke continues to be a serious health issue in the Bay Area.  Because of this AirNow.gov announced a feature that I wasn't aware of.  There is secondary website for fire specific pollution information: fire.airnow.gov

https://fire.airnow.gov/

You can type in your location and get local information if there is smoke or other fire related pollution in your area.  There is URL that allows you to put your latitude and longitude directly and get the information you want.  Here is a template based on Orinda:

https://fire.airnow.gov/?lat=37.88363000000004&lng=-122.18941999999998&zoom=12

Replace the numbers with the latitude and longitude of your weather station and you will have localized wild fire pollution information that is just a bookmark away.

Cheers, Edouard 

[Blicj11]

Thanks for sharing.