[ Back to live air quality maps ]
The maps on our home page tell you what the air is doing right now, here. This page is about the bigger picture: where the fires are, and where their smoke is headed next.
Two tools, answering two different questions. Use them together — neither is complete on its own.
Where the smoke is going
NOAA HRRR-Smoke forecast. A computer model that predicts where smoke will travel over the next day or two — the same one professional forecasters use. It updates hourly, runs day and night, and isn’t blinded by clouds or darkness.
Shows near-surface smoke — smoke at breathing height. That’s different from haze high overhead, which can look dramatic and never reach your lungs.
Finding the latest model run…
Where the fires are burning
EPA / US Forest Service Fire & Smoke Map. Not a forecast — this is what’s happening now. Active fire locations, official air quality monitors, and satellite-traced smoke plumes, on a regional view covering the Great Lakes and eastern Canada.
This map is static — it doesn’t animate. Refresh the page to pull the latest data.
Reading the forecast loop
The Pivotal Weather page opens in a way that hides most of what’s useful. Five things to do:
1. Zoom in
It lands on the whole continental US, where Erie is a speck. Click the Zoom button at the top and choose a regional view. We’re on the south shore of Lake Erie, in the northwest corner of Pennsylvania.
2. Check the run and forecast hours
The button above already points at the most recent run that forecasts a full two days ahead, and the line under it tells you the window in Eastern time. If you want a different one, use the Run dropdown in the Forecast Hour panel — the ones ending in 00z, 06z, 12z, or 18z go out 48 hours. Every other hourly run stops at about 18.
Some forecast hours will appear greyed out. That isn’t an error — the model is still drawing them, and they fill in over the following hour or so. If the hour you want is grey, check back shortly or step back to the previous extended run.
3. Press play
The ▶ button sits under the slider. The page opens frozen on a single frame, but the animation is the entire point — you’re watching where smoke moves over the next day or two, not where it sits at one moment.
4. Work out what time you’re looking at
This is the confusing part. Weather models run on UTC (also written “Z” or “Zulu”), not local time.
The numbers along the slider (000, 002, 004…) are hours after the model started. The start time is printed on the map itself, labeled Init: in the upper right. So if the map says Init: 00z and the slider is on 012, you’re looking at 12 hours after 00z.
To convert Z time to Erie time:
| Model time | Erie, summer (EDT) | Erie, winter (EST) |
|---|---|---|
| 00z | 8:00 PM previous day | 7:00 PM previous day |
| 06z | 2:00 AM | 1:00 AM |
| 12z | 8:00 AM | 7:00 AM |
| 18z | 2:00 PM | 1:00 PM |
Subtract 4 hours from Z time in summer, 5 hours in winter. Note that the UTC date rolls over at 8 PM our time in summer — so a run labeled with tomorrow’s date may have actually started this evening.
5. Read the colors
Near-surface smoke density is measured in micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m³). Lighter shades mean cleaner air; the scale climbs through green and yellow into orange, red, and magenta as smoke gets heavier. The legend on the map gives the exact numbers — use it rather than eyeballing, since the palette can differ between model views.
Reading the Fire & Smoke map
Simpler, but it has one setting you have to change and one limitation worth understanding.
Turn the plumes on first. Smoke plumes are hidden by default. Tap the gear icon in the upper right and switch on “NOAA Smoke Plumes.” You only need to do this once per browser — it remembers.
The colored dots are air quality monitors and sensors, using the same EPA AQI scale shown on our home page — green through yellow, orange, red, purple, and maroon as air gets worse. These are real measurements from real instruments, and they’re the most trustworthy thing on the map.
The flame icons mark active fire locations.
The grey shaded areas are smoke plumes traced from satellite imagery. They’ll obscure city and state labels underneath — that’s just the overlay sitting on top of the base map.
Why the plumes sometimes vanish
The plumes come from NOAA’s Hazard Mapping System, where analysts draw polygons by hand from visible satellite imagery. That method has real gaps:
- Clouds block it. No visible light through cloud cover means no plume drawn, even if smoke is there.
- Night coverage is unreliable for the same reason.
- It updates a few times a day, not continuously.
- A plume overhead often means smoke aloft, not smoke you’re breathing. In our part of the country especially, research has found that surface-level pollution inside plume areas is frequently low — the smoke is passing high above.
So: a missing plume doesn’t prove clean air, and a plume overhead doesn’t prove bad air. Cross-check against the monitor dots, and against the HRRR forecast above, which models smoke at breathing height specifically.
A forecast is not a measurement. HRRR-Smoke predicts what the atmosphere is likely to do. It can be wrong. For what the air is actually doing right now, check the live sensor maps on our home page — and trust those over any model.
If the forecast looks bad
Practical steps that actually reduce what reaches your lungs:
- Run a HEPA filter continuously. Leave it on rather than cycling it — it needs time to work through the room’s full air volume.
- Keep windows closed, including overnight when the cool air is tempting.
- Use the recirculate button in your car. Pulling outside air in means your cabin filter is fighting a losing battle.
- Wear an N95 if you have to be outdoors. Cloth and surgical masks do not stop PM2.5. The mask has to seal against your face to do anything.
- Watch indoor humidity. Fine particles absorb moisture and grow larger in humid air — something we deal with year-round living this close to the lake.
This matters most for people with asthma, COPD, or heart disease, for young children and older adults, and for anyone pregnant. If you’re in one of those groups, treat a bad forecast as a reason to change plans, not tough it out.
Sources and attribution: Forecast data comes from NOAA’s HRRR-Smoke model, visualized by Pivotal Weather. Fire, monitor, and plume data come from the EPA and US Forest Service Fire & Smoke Map, with plumes from NOAA’s Hazard Mapping System. BreatheErie is independent and not affiliated with NOAA, Pivotal Weather, the US Forest Service, or the EPA. Nothing here is medical advice — if you have respiratory or cardiovascular concerns, talk to your doctor.