Smoke across the Treasure Valley and the Central Mountains is slowly flowing east ahead of the cold front. Limited dispersion of near surface smoke is expected this afternoon. Patchy smoke and haze will move into East Idaho from Montana this evening and linger through tomorrow morning before dissipating in the afternoon. In general, lingering smoke and haze can become trapped under surface inversions overnight, potentially raising AQI levels until inversions break later the next morning. The highest AQI levels will be seen around the Treasure Valley from the East Oregon fires with brief periods of UNHEALTHY.
The RAP-NCEP Near Surface Smoke initialized at 8am MDT July 23, 2024 shows patchy smoke and haze across portions of the Treasure Valley, East Idaho, and the Central Mountains extending into the St. Joe National Forest in North Idaho. The fires in Eastern Oregon are the major producer of the smoke over Idaho.
Hi Sally, do you have any idea how long the air quality will be this bad in the Treasure Valley area?
ReplyDeleteI don't have any more information than is above, unfortunately. It really all depends on how much fire activity is happening on the Oregon fires and whether any new ones start. There should be some limited clearing this afternoon but I doubt it will clear out to the point of "Good" air quality just yet.
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