Smoke impacts picking up in southern Idaho

Fires continue to burn in our neighboring states, including a few new fires in eastern Oregon that are pushing smoke into Idaho. 

Through the weekend, the cycle of afternoon winds and inversion breaking will provide for limited clearing of patchy smoke and haze across most of the state, while more smoke and haze will continue to move into the Central Mountains and the Treasure Valley from the Oregon fires. This patchy smoke and haze will spread across South Idaho and linger overnight while potentially becoming trapped under surface inversions and raising AQI levels temporarily until inversions break later in the morning. For North Idaho, light haze from the Central Washington fires will flow towards the North Idaho border will linger through the weekend.

For the majority of the state, air quality continues to stay in the Good to Moderate range but air quality can change quickly with fires so nearby. Download the Air Idaho app to get the most up to date air quality information.

NOAA GOES-West GeoColor (true color) visible satellite image captured at 15:26 UTC (9:26 am MDT) on 12 July 2024 shows lingering smoke and haze over Idaho. Smoke and haze can be seen moving east from the fires in Washington, Oregon, and northern California. The thickest smoke is seen over western Oregon drifting into the Treasure Valley and the Central Mountains.