Chicago. We have just dipped under 300 for the first time in a couple days, yesterday was 500 all day. It’s quite visibly hazy and the air feels strongly of smoke.
The sunsets are particularly stunning, which may be from the fires up north, but maybe not. I was told that magnificent sunsets can be due to pollution and from fires, but would affect us this far south?
You don’t say how far south, but probably yes. The smoke from these fires is covering a huge area.
Lake county Ohio.
It was smokier yesterday. We got to 237. My friend in cleveland said it was 400 there.
Today is less stinky and its 220.
I live in a suburb of St Louis; I should have mentioned that but was replying to a fellow Missourian.
Particulates are higher than normal even for Missouri so maybe.
Western suburb of Cleveland and it is pretty bad. On the good side it kind of smelled like Cherry Blend pipe tobacco. And an amazing late afternoon purple sun that you could look directly at.
Yesterday in the West/Mid-Michigan area, around Grand Rapids, it hit 616. It broke records. It smelled godawful and looked like 70’s era photos I’d seen of LA. It’s better today, but still hazy and stinky.
They said on the local news that if you work outside all day, it’s the equivalent of smoking a pack of cigarettes.
Indeed. Yesterday, Chicago set a record for its highest air pollution level, breaking the old record several times over:
I’m in Duluth. We’ve had some of the worst air quality in the world over the last 3 days. I checked to see how far to drive out of this, looks like we’d have to get the Sioux Falls, SD or further S/W to get out of this. I had some leftover N95 masks from the Covid days, they help a lot. Otherwise, it’s just hole up at home, keep all the windows closed.
It looks a lot better so far today, but still in the Hazardous range, and very smokey.
You can check out one of the harbor cams here. Still smokey by the waterfront
Edited to add: 2 days ago you could barely see the bridge from that cam
Same in Kansas. Strong southerly winds are helping to keep the smoke away from us, although the sunsets have been colorful.
Yes, it was as bad as I’ve ever seen/smelled it yesterday morning and worse by the hour. The odor reminded me of scorching thermoset plastic, not distant wood like most I’ve smelled.
I wound up going for a 10 mile escooter ride at dusk, very spooky, and even found myself taking streets normally off limits to my little 19 mph max scoot since car traffic was so light. Helmet and lights fore & aft on the scooter but not so smoky to mask or chase me back indoors.
Definitely agreed – it smells very different than other instances in the past few years when we’ve gotten wildfire smoke here, and extremely unpleasant.
It’s smoke/pollution at mid or upper levels that cause the beautiful sunsets, not as much down low where you can smell & see it.
Despite current AirNow.gov reading being only four points lower than this morning there is actually some blue in the sky, sharp shadows from the sun, & it feels hotter in the sun than yesterday despite lower temps (less air pollution means stronger sun); also, doesn’t smell like a campfire any more.
Because I was listening to the news station driving here last night I decided to not go for my usual walk when I got here; there were scaring me with all of the unhealthly/dangerous to be out in it warnings. When I got here, I parked & put up the windows before turning the car off & going inside. Yup, an hour in the car with the windows down enjoying the air. D’Oh!
I’m from Thunder Bay, and while I’ve moved away, most of my family still lives in the region. Apparently the AQI peaked around 1500 on Wednesday, on a 40+ degree day. My Mom had to turn on her headlights around 4pm, and there was a visible covering of ash outside. My wife’s extended family had two camps on lac des milles lacs; one is gone for sure, the other, where she spent a lot of her childhood, is likely gone but no one can confirm as there is now a large restricted area. A family friend has a camp at lake Obonga, near Armstrong, which is threatened as well. Luckily everyone evacuated the camps before being in real danger, and my sister and her family got wind of the fires before starting a 10 day canoe trip through Quetico.
Yep, that’s the one. 
In my part of Ontario, today you could not see too much haze, or orange-yellow, or smell campfires. Some rain should help.
As you can expect from the reports of people living in the great plains north of me, nothing much of an effect on Dallas at the moment.
We dropped below 100. The air is breathable again. 