New York City wildfire smoke forecast
The map above shows NOAA HRRR-Smoke near-surface PM2.5 for the next 48 hours, updated hourly, with active fires from NIFC and live AQI from EPA AirNow monitors. It opens over New York City.
New York sits at sea level on the coast with no terrain trapping of any kind. Smoke that reaches the city is a regional air mass rather than a local accumulation, which is why the whole metro tends to read similarly and why the episodes have such sharp beginnings and endings.
Where the smoke comes from
Quebec and Ontario fires are the source that matters, arriving on northwesterly flow down the Saint Lawrence corridor and across New England. Distance means the smoke has usually been aloft for a day or more before it descends, so the surface concentration depends heavily on how well it mixes down once it arrives.
How long it lasts
A shift in the synoptic flow, typically the passage of a front or the movement of the upper-level trough steering the plume. Once the wind turns onshore off the Atlantic the improvement is fast, often within a few hours.
Past smoke events
June 7, 2023 is the reference event: smoke from Quebec pushed New York City's AQI above 400, turned the sky orange, and produced the worst air quality in the city's monitoring record. The June 2026 episode was smaller but affected the same corridor.
Running, riding, and trailheads
Central Park, Prospect Park, and the Hudson River Greenway are all at the same elevation and in the same air mass, so there is no local escape. These events are short and steep compared with western episodes, which makes shifting a run by half a day a genuinely effective strategy here.
Reading the map
Most of this smoke starts in Canada, so switch the map to the ECCC FireWork model, which resolves Canadian sources HRRR-Smoke can underplay. Compare the two with the layer toggle.
Near-surface is the product that maps to what you breathe and to AQI, not the high-altitude column that only tints the sunset. A sky that looks bad and a monitor that reads fine are usually both correct, and they are describing different layers of air.