We just went all the way down into the yellow! 95.
Hey, the New York Times produced a video on the box fan and furnace filter hack:
I’m in Metro Detroit which is supposedly one of the top ten worst polluted places in the world right now due to this disaster. Haven’t felt a thing. And I have asthma.
Better today, but still freaky sunsets.
I think individual reactions, at least individual immediate reactions, must vary quite a bit. I was outside for a while yesterday when the index was still over 300 (not doing anything very strenuous), and very briefly in the over-400 morning, and I didn’t notice any symptoms whatsoever aside from the smell of smoke. No irritation, no coughing, no sneezing, no particular trouble breathing. (I don’t have asthma, but I do have a heart condition. If I’d had any symptoms, I’d have come back in a lot sooner.) In the morning when it was well over 400 I had a sense of impending doom even from inside the house, but I’m pretty sure that was from the light, not from anything I was breathing; the light was like that just before a really bad storm.
Whether there was some amount of long-term damage to my lungs, adding to whatever I’ve accumulated over the years from campfires, wood stoves, and occasional time in cities – that’s harder to tell. My lungs seem to be holding up well so far. But resistances vary – a lot. My maternal grandfather smoked tobacco all his adult life and lived into his 90’s with no lung problems; that doesn’t mean it’s recommended.
I put the box fan on a chair (it’s like a Windsor dining table chair…the air can go through the back of it) so it’s raised up to the height of my window, and I place that a few feet from my window in my living room. The filter just goes on the back of the box fan (it’s the perfect size that covers the entire back of the fan)…it’ll stay put once you turn it on.
We’re down to 95, in the yellow. I looks like we’re going to stay around here most of the day.
AFAICT, AirNow’s interactive map shows just one little purple square this morning; it’s about 20 miles north of Philadelphia.
DC-area is heavily yellow with the station closest to me reporting 66 but AirNow says we could expect orange later.
A couple of days ago, when this thread started, I would have said that I thought there might be a slight smoky smell in the air in Cleveland, but I wasn’t sure if I might be imagining it.
Yesterday, there was definitely a smoky smell.
Today, there’s a smoky smell, my cough is bad, and my eyes are burning.
The sky, though, doesn’t look any hazier than normal for Cleveland, and definitely doesn’t look smoke-hazy (I know well what smoke-haze looks like from my time in Montana).
Screen name tracks.
in philly we are at 116 and things have cleared. still hazy, but visibility is at 10 miles.
Wednesday and Thursday were pretty bad here in central Maryland, with AQI between 150 and 200. Definite haze in the air and smell of smoke.
Today it’s better, around 80 so far.
94 here; creeping up a bit from last night and from 92 earlier this morning, but still in the yellow.
We’ve been having intermittent bits of rain; not enough at least so far to break the drought, but it’s probably helping a bit towards clearing the air.
Over in Mentor Ohio, there is no smoke smell and no haze. It says the index is 80.
I haven’t been out yet, but it definitely looks clearer here than either yesterday or the day before. The little guy’s baseball game was canceled yesterday due to air quality or lack thereof.
Just checked AirNow and it says the rating is 16. So I guess the worst is over.
Degree of haze is a difficult thing to determine visually. There is a 5 square mile island 28 miles southwest of St Martin called Saba My first visit to St Martin skies were clear and I would say there was zero haze the first two days. Looking off our balcony I could see the beach and beautiful blue water, but no island.
On the third day I woke up and went out on the balcony. I saw Saba for the first time and it actually startled me. A huge freaking island where previously there wasn’t one. Any tiny bit of haze and the island is not visible. On a totally clear day, BOOM, it is there as clear as can be.
Until the next round –
We dropped to 31, which is in the green. I don’t see much haze out there as a visual check.
That reporting station must be malfunctioning. It’s still purple!
Nah, It’s just immediately downwind of a very very popular cheesesteak place where the grill’s set a little too hot. 
More seriously, I bet their mapping stuff simply displays the last data point received from any given station, and labels the resulting map “current”. There may be some cut-off to keep year–old stale data from appearing, but probably not 5-day old.