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See the smoke forecast for tonight through the weekend

Here's a model forecast of surface smoke for Friday night through Sunday.

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Here's a model forecast of surface smoke for Friday night through Sunday.

Surface smoke concentration forecast frame, with valid time and legend label baked in
Smoke concentration legend

Surface smoke forecast for Friday night through Sunday from NOAA's RRFS model. Play loop or control with slider.

The model shows gradual improvement on Saturday, although enough smoke is still anticipated to warrant a Code Orange (unhealthy for sensitive groups) for Saturday, and some Code Red readings may linger into Saturday morning.

Smoke then looks to increase again on Sunday. It won't be anything like today, and may remain below Code Orange. However, there is some uncertainty about Sunday. That's because there is some question about how much the fires in Canada have weakened, in part due to the outage of a NOAA satellite that lasted much of Thursday.

"Additional smoke will move into the region Sunday. At this time, we think smoke will be noticeable, but too diffuse for alerts. However, confidence is low," the Maryland Department of Environment said. "Between the satellite outage yesterday and clouds over the fire region today, it is unlikely smoke models are capturing the fires well."

Dan Stillman

Dan Stillman

Lead meteorologist and Capital Weather cofounder. Leader in marketing, communications and engagement.

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