Good afternoon folks, you can see on this satellite image that while there are legit clouds over the northern Great Lakes (whiter values), the milky middle gray values either side of that brighter area is the satellite picking up the Canadian wildfire smoke plume directed right at the greater WMass region this afternoon… Air Quality Alerts will continue through today, and likely be re-hoisted tomorrow / Thursday.

I have attached a Legend I created to show you not only the extend of poor air quality across the northeastern half of the United States, but what the numbers mean in terms of air quality.

I used a 1-hour period, not the 12 to 24 hour average period the DEP’s use, as those smooth out spikes, yes, but don’t give us a better read on the real-time impacts of air quality, as far as I can tell. I am learning about this with time, hang in there, Dave.

P.S. We may get some relief overnight tonight, but I think it resumes by tomorrow morning, especially by mid-day into early Friday morning, after which we hopefully get much better relief as the plume dives south and away, for now.