predicting smoke/haze levels

Real time air quality here,

https://www2.purpleair.com

I’m looking forward to other’s replies on this. I currently use inciweb.gov, fire.airnow.gov/, and Wunderground.

https://fire.airnow.gov/

http://lar.wsu.edu/airpact/gmap/ap5/ap5smoke.html

Thanks all! I’ll look into each of these when I get a chance (hopefully tonight). If anyone else has any tips for this, please chime in!

The Windy app (also windy.com) has a PM2.5 layer, but it’s based on the CAMS 40km model, so I’m not sure how accurate it is.

Smoke and PM2.5 levels can be very localized. On some days, it’s almost too smoky to leave the house and the skies are dark, but if we drive a mile or two, the air is much cleaner and the sun is out. Broad forecasts are just that. So don’t be surprised if your trip takes you in and out of smoky areas, even with a clear forecast.

And forecasts can be wrong. And the weather changes. And new fires can start in a (lightning) flash.

Sometimes you just have to accept more uncertainty and deal with the reality. That’s part of the adventure.

— Rex

Rex—yeah, I’m willing to deal with some uncertainty; I’m just trying to figure out enough to know whether I should drive 6 hours South or 8 hours North (which is hopefully easier than trying to get exact forecasts)!  It’ll play around with the above suggestions over the next couple of days; thanks again everyone

For wind speed and directions in the next 48 hours, I usually pull up the Terminal Area Forecasts for a local airport.  e.g. Google “TAF LAX”.  It will all look very cryptic because it’s abbreviated to what a pilot would transcribe.  There are plain-text converters like this one:

https://www.iflightplanner.com/resources/metartaftranslator.aspx

But I’m being a dinosaur in that way.

Windy.com or their Windy app is vastly more information, presented graphically, and lets you scroll through several days in the future, hour by hour.