Widespread smoke across eastern Colorado. Advisories have been issued.

 A steady stream of smoke continues to pour into Colorado from the north.  The heaviest smoke today will undoubtedly be across the eastern half of Colorado with advisories posted for all areas to the east of the Continental Divide.  You can view all of our advisories on our Colorado summary page.  We also highly suggest signing up for our air quality email alerts where you can choose specific counties of which to receive alerts.  

Visible satellite image of Canadian wildfire smoke moving into eastern Colorado.  Image courtesy of the Colorado State University SLIDER satellite page.

Although all of eastern Colorado will be impacted today, we expect the worst air quality to likely be across the northeastern corner of the state (including Julesburg, Fort Morgan and Burlington) westward to the Front Range foothills, including the entire Interstate 25 corridor from Ft. Collins southward through Denver and Colorado Springs to Pueblo.

Let's look at those two areas separately.  In the northeastern corner of the state, we are anticipating the highest particle pollution levels due to having the heaviest smoke.  We expect fine particulate concentrations (PM2.5) to increase throughout the day in this area as heavy smoke high up in the atmosphere mixes down to the earth's surface.  So even though smoke concentrations are already elevated this morning across the northeastern plains of Colorado, if you need to be outside today then this morning is probably the better option from a health standpoint.

HRRR-Smoke model output showing the heaviest smoke concentrations in far northeastern Colorado Tuesday afternoon.

Meanwhile towards the foothills, it will be the combination of particle pollution and ozone that will create health concerns across the urban corridor.  All the larger cities along I-25 from Ft. Collins all the way south to Pueblo will be impacted today.  Similar to the adjacent eastern plains, the air quality is expected to get progressively worse as we move through the day.  So any outdoor activities would be best suited during the morning hours.  Better yet, if possible limit your time outdoors altogether.  Of course that is not possible for everyone, so while outside be sure to slow it down and take plenty of breaks.

The news is not all doom and gloom.  We don't expect the smoke to increase today for locations west of the Continental Divide.  In fact, we might see a little improvement in places like Granby, Steamboat Springs and Craig.  However particle pollution levels will still be elevated, so we don't advise everyone to return to normal outdoor activity levels just yet, especially if you suffer from heart or lung ailments.  We should also note that smoke may increase again across the West Slope on Wednesday as the upper level transport winds try to bring in smoke from Pacific Northwest wildfires, so please continue to remain alert to rapidly changing air quality conditions for the remainder of this week.

How to protect your health from wildfire smoke

Air quality in your area