Areas of Excessive Rainfall and Fire Weather Today; Wildfire Smoke Bringing Unhealthy Air Quality to the Pacific Northwest

In southeast Texas, the coastal Carolinas, and much of New Mexico today, showers and thunderstorms may bring excessive rainfall which could lead to areas of flooding. Dry, gusty winds will contribute to scattered areas of elevated to critical fire weather today in the western U.S. Wildfire smoke is causing unhealthy air quality today in parts of the Pacific Northwest and central Plains. Read More >

The animated movie on the weather.gov/medford/wildfire web page is based on the HRRR. Typically those movies only go out 18 hours. If you want to view imagery that goes out 48 hours, this tuturial will help you get there. The HRRR smoke model has really improved over the past several years and can provide a good idea on where the greatest/least concentration of smoke will be, out to 48 hours. Please understand when viewing this imagery that no model is perfect, and it's usually best to use to view trends where smoke is getting worse or better. Take a look at the AQI in your area, and then you can use the model to see if it looks like your area will improve or worsen through the day/night.

Here's the link to the smoke model page: https://rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrr/HRRRsmoke/

Note that this imagery only shows county boundaries. Below is an image with some approximate city locations as a reference in case you're not familiar with all county boundaries.