AQM v7 prediction of PM2.5 concentration (unit: (mu)g/m^3) overlaid with USEPA observations (colored circles) across the Northwestern U.S. at 00Z UTC on July 30, 2024. Credit: NOAA Environmental Modeling Center

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Imagine you're a NOAA weather forecaster in the field during a raging, rapidly-spreading wildfire. Your title is incident meteorologist (or IMET), and your job is to support agencies and emergency responders who fight these devastating blazes by providing accurate weather forecasts. Your forecasts help determine a variety of factors about how the weather could impact the fire, including but not limited to how quickly the fire might spread and where it could go.

But you can't do it alone.

...

Behind the scenes, NOAA's Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) and Air Resources Laboratory (ARL) in College Park, Maryland, play a vital role in these critical forecasts. They produce forecast models of air quality that allow IMETs and air quality forecasters to provide more accurate information to emergency responders and the public.

In May 2024, the EMC, working closely with ARL, developed and released a model update that keeps the public, NOAA and partners aware of changes in air quality. The seventh and newest upgrade to the Air Quality Model (AQM v7), builds on past improvements by accounting for more sources of pollutants and putting them together in one air quality model.

more ...