Update on NOAA’s Operational Air Quality Predictions

NOAA provides operational predictions of ozone and wildfire smoke for the United States (U.S.) and predictions of airborne dust over the contiguous 48 states. Predictions are produced beyond midnight of the following day at 12 km spatial and hourly temporal resolution and are available at http://airquality.weather.gov/. Ozone predictions and testing of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) predictions combine the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) operational North American Mesoscale (NAM) weather predictions with inventory based emission estimates from the EPA and chemical processes within the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model. Predictions of smoke and dust from dust storms use the Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model. Verification of ozone and developmental aerosol predictions relies on AIRNow compilation of observations from surface monitors. Verification of smoke and dust predictions uses satellite retrievals of smoke and dust.