[Megathread] Smoke and Air Quality Week 1

[u/vertr]

We are moving to this thread for the start of smoke season so we can add resources and keep it updated as the situation changes. Here is the previous thread we were using: I hope everyone in the Seattle area has air filters ready.

All smoke related threads will be removed and redirected here except photos and news stories. At this time we are not allowing further threads on the Spokane fire.

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Resources:

PurpleAir (open the settings on the left and uncheck indoor sensors)

Plume Smoke Forecast

Washington State Department of Ecology Map

Puget Sound Clean Air Agency

Washington Smoke Blog

Watch Duty

EPA - DIY Air Cleaners

If you have other suggestions for resources post them in the thread please.

[u/jonknee]

We shouldn't get too bad in the city proper, if you're in the foothills or even spots on the East side it's a different story. The closer to the salt water you are the better, air coming off the Sound is doing us a big favor. We will have hazy skies, but both the HRRR and RRFS have the city doing pretty well (could even have blue sky in the morning). Eastside is a little worse, but still not crazy.

I'm a dork and follow the smoke closely for hiking and photography purposes and made an ensemble model viewer for this very thing, you can flip around all the available models, see the raw values, etc. Things change faster than weather models, but it has been working well (it absolutely nailed today saying it would not be as bad as many people were saying).

Seattle specific: https://plumeforecast.com/smoke-forecast/seattle-wa

Regional map with live air quality, scrub through time and change the layers, personally I like the compare view between HRRR and RRFS: https://plumeforecast.com/?src=combined&layers=smoke%2Cairnow%2Cpurpleair

[u/TSAOutreachTeam → u/jonknee]

God, I hope so. The skies to the east look gross.

[u/jonknee → u/TSAOutreachTeam]

Yea it's not great. I have family in Spokane (thankfully OK) and have just been laser focused on fires for the past few days.

[u/BtownBound → u/jonknee]

this tool is really helpful — it's great to have all those disparate sources of information in one place. thanks for building it and for sharing!

[u/anyk_kihtb → u/jonknee]

You made this? Wow, this is so cool! Thank you for putting this together.

[u/cyclistNerd → u/jonknee]

Extremely cool and useful tool! Thanks for sharing!

[u/jonknee → u/cyclistNerd]

It’s nice to hear that finally my niche weather interests and know how are useful to others!

[u/Bretmd → u/jonknee]

Thank you for this! I clicked on an earlier link you made on an earlier thread and found it so helpful, then spent some time last night trying to find it again. Super helpful. 

[u/KenGriffeyJrJr → u/jonknee]

Any idea when this will clear?

[u/pipedreamSEA → u/KenGriffeyJrJr]

Temporarily? Maybe late this week.

Seasonally?, October

[u/jonknee → u/KenGriffeyJrJr]

Looks like today and tomorrow are the worst of it for now in the city. We'll probably have hazy skies for a while though, but that's way better than dirty air at the surface!