It felt almost pleasant this morning as the the low temperature was 70 or possibly 69 at the Salt Lake City Airport. 70 is actually the average low at the airport, which just goes to show how insane summer has become around here that it feels cool and refreshing when we finally have an average low. Average in this case is based on 1991-2020, so if we went back further, we're probably still running above the 20th century average.
Countering the coolness was the smoke, which thickened overnight. PM2.5 concentrations at Hawthorne Elementary climbed substantially after midnight and are now above 40 ug/m3, in the unhealthy for sensitive groups category.
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| Source: MesoWest |
Yesterday's MODIS imagery shows several major sources of smoke in the Great Basin and Pacific Northwest including fires on the eastern slopes of the Cascades and in northeast Washington that exploded over the weekend, sadly causing serious losses of homes and structures in Spokane. There are also fires in Oregon and southwest Idaho that are major smoke producers, as well as the Widemouth Fire in central Utah.
Given the weak trough that came through last night, which resulted in a shift of the flow to northwesterly, the source of the smoke in the Salt Lake Valley today is not the Widemouth Fire but sources to the northwest and west.
Sadly there's still a lot of summer 2026 to go.
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