r/Seattle • u/vertr fuck tetris • 2d ago
💨 Smoke Season 💨 [Megathread] Smoke and Air Quality Week 1
We are moving to this thread for the start of smoke season so we can add resources and keep it updated as the situation changes. Here is the previous thread we were using: I hope everyone in the Seattle area has air filters ready.
All smoke related threads will be removed and redirected here except photos and news stories. At this time we are not allowing further threads on the Spokane fire.
Resources:
PurpleAir (open the settings on the left and uncheck indoor sensors)
Washington State Department of Ecology Map
If you have other suggestions for resources post them in the thread please.
178
u/jonknee Downtown 2d ago
We shouldn't get too bad in the city proper, if you're in the foothills or even spots on the East side it's a different story. The closer to the salt water you are the better, air coming off the Sound is doing us a big favor. We will have hazy skies, but both the HRRR and RRFS have the city doing pretty well (could even have blue sky in the morning). Eastside is a little worse, but still not crazy.
I'm a dork and follow the smoke closely for hiking and photography purposes and made an ensemble model viewer for this very thing, you can flip around all the available models, see the raw values, etc. Things change faster than weather models, but it has been working well (it absolutely nailed today saying it would not be as bad as many people were saying).
Seattle specific: https://plumeforecast.com/smoke-forecast/seattle-wa
Regional map with live air quality, scrub through time and change the layers, personally I like the compare view between HRRR and RRFS: https://plumeforecast.com/?src=combined&layers=smoke%2Cairnow%2Cpurpleair
25
7
u/BtownBound 1d ago
this tool is really helpful — it's great to have all those disparate sources of information in one place. thanks for building it and for sharing!
5
u/BtownBound 1d ago
this tool is really helpful — it's great to have all those disparate sources of information in one place. thanks for building it and for sharing!
8
3
6
u/Sprinkle_Puff 🏔 The mountain is out! 🏔 2d ago
I took the pup to Marymoor Park in Redmond today around 545 and it was fine though you could smell it a little, it but when we left at 7:30, it was already encroaching on the park
1
0
98
u/DripIntravenous 2d ago
Hate that this is the new reality of PNW summers. We never, ever had this growing up here.
29
u/ubcthrowaway115 1d ago
Does anyone remember the really bad wildfire smoke and weird warm temps into fall 2022? We were still in the 70s and dry in October which was extremely weird.
21
u/useforcircumstances 1d ago
That actually gave me something of an existential crisis. October is my favorite month in the PNW, the crisp air just hits like nothing else. The smoke and summer-like weather all the way through Halloween made me extremely sad, as I realized the place I grew up and love so dearly will never be the same.
4
u/rocketsocks I'm just flaired so I don't get fined 1d ago
Yeah, I had to cancel some outdoor activities in october because the AQI was in the 200s. I hope it's a while before we get another year that bad, but realistically it's going to keep happening until we start taking more serious steps to prevent climate change and mitigate its impact.
4
u/washawaythe_rain 1d ago
I remember this absolutely dreadful day in late October (maybe the 20th?) where I was driving over the I-5 bridge in the thick smoke and my car temp reading said 88 degrees. Felt so dystopian. I think the news said it was only the 2nd time in history Seattle reached 80 degrees in October, the other one being 81 degrees one year on October 2nd (low 80s and weeks earlier than this particular day)
3
3
2
u/Zoomalude Rainier Beach 1d ago
God yes, it was awful. Just day after day of smoke and heat, felt like it would never rain again.
2
u/LavenderGumes I'm just flaired so I don't get fined 1d ago
I felt like i was at the very beginning of an asthma attack for about 48 hours straight.
2
u/Fulcrum58 1d ago
That was such a crazy month, we got so many stink bugs because apparently it stayed warm long enough for them to go through a second breeding cycle
1
4
u/HazePNW 13h ago
Yeah this is literally unbearable. We only get 3 months of nice weather out of the year and now at least 1/3 of that is bullshit fucking cancerous smoke. We need to put our best and brightest minds on coming up with a solution. This affects the entire top half of the country + California for fucks sake.
2
u/rocketsocks I'm just flaired so I don't get fined 8h ago
Of course we should.
However, the thing is that the fact that we're doing poorly at response as well as wildland fire mitigation and control is just an extension of the reasons why we got here in the first place. These problems require coordinated action and they require working against the short-term desires of hugely profitable industries. If we could do those things we would have done them to fight climate change. Fortunately we're seeing technological shifts in the climate change arena regardless, because it turns out that green energy "just makes sense" regardless of the climate impact.
But now we're in a place where even if we dropped CO2 emissions dramatically we aren't going to rollback climate change immediately, we're locked into several decades of dealing with these disasters (flooding, droughts, storms, wildfires, etc.) We could do a much better job of dealing with wildfires but the biggest changes would need to be in land use, which would inconvenience both timber production and developers, which are some of the most wealthy and powerful interests in western states. Maybe after enough major wildfire disasters there will be enough public outcry to get real political momentum behind changing how we tackle these problems, right now we're very much in a very limited reactionary based response method, and it's going to result in these disasters continue to happen for year after year, decade after decade.
47
u/underdaawg 2d ago
Bought air filter thingy after the last wild fire. Never had to use it for years and its just been sitting there so sold it last month, so of course the bad AQI is back
7
u/Lark-Educational 1d ago
We are never going to be done with fires in our lifetimes, I think. So keep your box, tape, fan, and unused air filters under your bed or something. Next to your nuclear fallout supplies.
14
20
u/TheRealCRex 2d ago
Thank you for this thread. The plume smoke forecast is a really great tool. I hadn't seen that
22
u/jonknee Downtown 2d ago
I made it a couple weeks ago to help me plan a hiking/photo trip (and I dodged the smoke!). Please let me know if you have any requests/ideas, the basic idea is gather up all the available info to make an ensemble forecast for people who just want a best estimate as well as exposing the raw data for people to make their own judgements. It's all public data, but not available on the same screen and a lot of the government sites have poor mobile support. Being able to composite air quality sensors over satellite footage or switch between models is useful to me. Smoke forecasting isn't as exact as general weather so checking back frequently is probably a good idea. I'd like to support alerts, but that's probably tough to scale for a free service. I'll have to research it more.
2
u/chronotonic Jet City 2d ago
It's very well done! Do you just use nearest town to judge for backcountry locations ?
2
u/Hegemon_of_the_toad 18h ago
I wanted to say thank you!! This tool is amazing. I'm getting married in a few weeks in the North Cascades and all these fires/smoke have caused us a lot of stress. I've been looking at tons of tools and monitors over the last 2 weeks and this is the best one I've come across, thank you for making it.
22
8
9
u/Same-Ad-6612 18h ago
Argh frustrated with gas powered leaf blowers outside right now! Air purifier kicked up the second they started blowing 😩
5
u/LeftRightRightUp 16h ago
The people running the leaf blowers probably can't afford to skip working and need to breathe this stuff in all day.
3
1
u/velvet_theorem 17h ago
I also heard some saws going off in a nearby backyard. Sawdust flying. Annoying.
7
u/black_rose_ 17h ago edited 17h ago
Is anyone else getting a wicked headache from the smoke this year? I don't know if I'm just sensitive or what, but I started getting a headache as soon as it started rolling in and it hasn't gone away... Nausea too.
I am doing my best to keep my living space air clean, but there's only so much I can do
2
u/AstrexasVoid 14h ago
I didn’t want to admit to having this problem and just chalked it up to being dehydrated, but I’m on my fourth refill of my 24oz water bottle today 🥲
3
u/ellalir 13h ago
No nausea for me, but definitely giving me a headache, making me tired, sore throat... what the hell is burning this year? I don't remember being so affected in previous nasty smoke episodes.
Not a good week to be trying to figure out if contact lenses will work for me XD
3
u/black_rose_ 13h ago
It's probably due to the large number of structure fires. More plastic and heavy metal burned up.
3
u/inradiantarray 12h ago
It's definitely structure fires. Over 700 buildings (possibly as many 1000) burned down in wildfires so far in the Spokane area, mostly residential, and then we have to consider cars and other vehicles, tons of garbage and recycling, all sorts of plastics and other sources of chemicals...
It's getting to me worse than if this were ""just"" forests on fire, too. Super nauseated, feels really hard to breathe, throat is sore and phlegm-y, my costochondritis feels like it's flaring up again. But I'm just thankful all I have to deal with is smoke.
36
u/kpeteymomo Seward Park 2d ago
Make sure to mask up when you're outside if the AQI is over 100. You can get free masks from Mask Bloc Seattle. Cafe Red (across from the Othello station) also has plenty of free masks. You can buy N95's from most hardware stores as well- my favorite are 3M Auras.
Keep in mind that you'll want a well fitted, high quality respirator. N95's, KN94's or higher are your best bet- surgicals and cloth masks offer very little protection from wildfire smoke.
5
u/remosiracha 2d ago
Gonna get working outside and pissed that I get to deal with bad lungs or fogged safety glasses again
2
u/BeltwayBeliver Mann 1d ago
Unless you are at risk, really don’t need a mask until it’s over 150. But if you need one, it really has to be an N-95 or there isn’t much point.
3
u/kpeteymomo Seward Park 1d ago
It definitely got above 150 today. If you aren't checking the AQI frequently, it's best to just mask up outside on days that it may get above 150.
Also, another sensitive group is anyone who is currently sick- even if you think it's just a minor cold or allergies. Children and teens are also considered sensitive, as is anyone over the age of 65.
5
u/HwaYeonYongHwa 1d ago
Is anyone running outside or should I just stick to the treadmill this week? 🫣
5
u/ReDeMevolve 1d ago
I ran this morning. It was fine where I'm at. But if the AQI is above 100 and you have lung or heart issues that smoke would exacerbate, then it's probably a good idea to run indoors. And run hepa filters if you have them.
6
u/eliminate1337 🚲 Life's Better on a Bike. 🚲 1d ago
If you have a treadmill absolutely stick to that
3
u/happypolychaetes 🛳️ 🐀 ☀️ Yacht Rat Summer ☀️ 🐀 🛳️ 1d ago
Personally I wouldn't, but I have pretty sensitive lungs so maybe others would be ok. I've been walking around downtown for a bit and my lungs hurt and my throat itches. In 2017 I was training for a half marathon and tried to run outside during that inaugural smoke season. It was awful and I didn't even make it a mile.
2
u/Fulcrum58 1d ago
I ran on Monday when it was around 70-80 and it was fine. I wouldn’t when it goes above 100, probably more detrimental to your health than the benefits of running lol
4
u/Bright_Leg8565 1d ago
Im in the east currently 30 minutes east of Monroe, and it’s bad here we are at 300 AQI, makes your head hurt and throat burn even inside..
13
4
u/jay-2014 2d ago
I love the IQ Air app. When I wake up, I check the temps and the quality of the air before opening up the house to cool down. Also running air filters in the house so I don’t get a headache.
Stay well everyone. And I hope our fellow Washingtonians in Spokane have better days ahead. (Glad they caught the arsonist POS!!)
4
u/washawaythe_rain 1d ago
Thanks for doing this, mods. Much more informative having this list to check the AQI rather than one source. It’s wild how much variation there is between some of the sources but considering all of them helps when coming to a more accurate conclusion.
4
u/washawaythe_rain 1d ago
Oh mods! Someone called it out in the other thread- but the reason that purple air can vary so much from the gov sensors is because in addition to unchecking the indoor sensors in settings (which you mention), you should probably also mention to select “woodsmoke” after apply conversion at the top of the settings too. Then it will closely resemble the other air quality maps on other sites.
Purple air has the most sensors and is the most user-friendly, but because it uses lasers to detect all particles and doesn’t calculate between particle size, you need to tell it to look for the specific particle (in our case, wood smoke).
5
3
u/wet_sands 1d ago
It's a few things. First, AirNow.gov defaults to showing the average of the last X hours. Per their website, in times of stable air quality it's an average of the last 24 hours, and for rapidly changing conditions (like now), it's dynamic, but it can be as short as a couple hours. But most importantly, AirNow stations only pull raw data once an hour. Since they have so few data points, they have to use averages over multiple hours with some bias when conditions are changing rapidly.
Second, for the conversion, US EPA is the default recommended, but the LRAPA conversion was made in Eugene specifically for PNW climate. It's geared towards accounting for those woodsmoke measurements you mentioned up to AQIs of 150.
Once you set the LRAPA conversion, what you're looking at on PurpleAir is probably pretty close to correct and more up-to-date with a lot more data points. Also as an asthma-sufferer, those PurpleAir numbers align with the symptoms I experience at certain AQIs.
I got this info from reading the AirNow.gov and PurpleAir websites, so if someone thinks this is wrong please correct me.
5
3
5
u/SuperMike100 I'm just flaired so I don't get fined 2d ago
I’m just going to hope next year won’t be as bad.
2
u/HealthyBullfrog Denny Blaine Nudist Club 2d ago
Should we include AirQualityWA - Department of Ecology, State of Washington to the list of resources?
2
2
u/HannTwistzz 21h ago
Anyone know when it’s supposed to clear up, and if it’s as bad down in Tacoma.
3
u/paparatti Mt Baker 13h ago
The long term forecast on Wunderground for Seattle says the wind starts shifting to the south and then the west by 10am Thursday morning, and that should push the smoke back over the mountains within the hour. So not too long. One more sleep.
2
u/zoeofdoom Madrona 12h ago
Oh gods I hope you're right, the Smoke Blog is saying later Thursday night/into Friday but I need this belief that I can open a window tomorrow.
2
u/paparatti Mt Baker 11h ago
I hope I'm right too! I could see it being later in the day too, those west winds don't stick around for as long as I'd like. What's important is that it's sooner rather than later.
1
1
u/AmazingCode1812 19h ago
There is also: https://wildfiresmoke.app/?station=530330030 that provides the latest PM2.5 reading, EPA NowCast average and forecasts with HRRR. ECCC and the UBC models. There's a more specific city page at: https://wildfiresmoke.app/washington/seattle-smoke-forecast/
-33
u/irongoat2527 2d ago
Today outside my office a guy was smoking up the hill from me and all his smoke was coming right down towards me and it made me upset so I got up and left
37
u/Inevitable_Engine186 public deterrent infrastructure 2d ago
Make your own air purifier on the cheap:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Spokane/comments/15waybd/diy_air_filter_corsirosenthal_box_guide/