Atmospheric River in the Pacific Northwest and Northern Rockies this Weekend

A Pacific storm and atmospheric river will impact the Pacific Northwest states and northern Rockies this weekend, bringing locally heavy low elevations rain and heavy high elevation snow in the mountains. By Sunday over the Interior Northwest, rain combined with snowmelt will increase the risk of flood hazards. Flood Watches are in effect. Read More >

The animated movie on the weather.gov/medford/wildfire web page is based on the HRRR. Typically those movies only go out 18 hours. If you want to view imagery that goes out 48 hours, this tuturial will help you get there. The HRRR smoke model has really improved over the past several years and can provide a good idea on where the greatest/least concentration of smoke will be, out to 48 hours. Please understand when viewing this imagery that no model is perfect, and it's usually best to use to view trends where smoke is getting worse or better. Take a look at the AQI in your area, and then you can use the model to see if it looks like your area will improve or worsen through the day/night.

Here's the link to the smoke model page: https://rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrr/HRRRsmoke/

Note that this imagery only shows county boundaries. Below is an image with some approximate city locations as a reference in case you're not familiar with all county boundaries.