Smoke forecast
Where the smoke over Bend was, and where the model sends it next. Scrub back 12 hours or forward 48. Every hour shown is a model estimate, not a measurement.
The scale is anchored to visibility, because that is the one reading you can take yourself without trusting a model. Distances are approximate.
The Three Sisters stand clean to the west, about twenty-five miles out, and Broken Top and Bachelor separate individually along the ridge.
The Sisters have flattened into one blue shape and Broken Top has lost its notch, though Bachelor still marks the southwest.
The Cascades are gone. Awbrey Butte, a couple of miles from downtown, is the furthest thing that still has trees on it.
From the top of Pilot Butte the town holds below, but the west side of Bend, three miles out, disappears into grey.
From downtown you lose Pilot Butte, a mile east, and the mountains might as well not exist.
Bend sits on the dry east side of the Cascades, surrounded by fire country in every direction. Smoke arrives from the Cascade crest, from central and southern Oregon, from northern California, and from as far as Idaho and Washington. The high desert also means clear, cold nights that settle smoke into the basin overnight, so mornings often read worse than afternoons.
The 2017, 2020, and 2021 seasons all produced multi-week stretches where the Sisters were not visible from town, which is the local shorthand for how bad a summer was.
The verdict at the top of this page answers that for Bend specifically, and the time of day it says matters. High desert nights are clear and cold, which settles smoke into the basin overnight, so Bend mornings often read worse than Bend afternoons on the same plume. A 7am reading and a 3pm reading are two different answers rather than one drifting. Everything shown is a model estimate rather than a measurement at your address.
That is the headline answer above: the clear time, the first stretch of at least six straight hours below the Hazy threshold. The overnight settling is why the six-hour hold is worth its cost here. Bend can improve through an afternoon and then fill again after dark without a single thing changing upwind, so a one-hour dip is a very poor guide to the next day in this basin.
Bend is surrounded by fire country in every direction: the Cascade crest to the west, central and southern Oregon around it, northern California to the south, and Idaho and Washington far enough out to still count. So the arriving-smoke question usually has more than one answer. The second half is the basin: clear cold nights settle it in, which means a bad Bend morning does not require anything new to have started.
The Cascade crest immediately west, central and southern Oregon, northern California, and on the longer setups Idaho and Washington. Being on the dry east side of the Cascades means Bend does not get the marine air that flushes the Willamette Valley, so what arrives tends to stay. Run the timeline backward on the map and the direction it came in from is visible rather than inferred.
The five-day strip above gives the day-by-day read and the timeline covers forty-eight hours hour by hour. Bend’s bad seasons have run in weeks rather than days. 2017, 2020, and 2021 all produced multi-week stretches, so the strip is the more honest instrument here than the next hour. Forecasts are sharpest one to two days out and the page shows the spread.
Look west at the Three Sisters, twenty-five miles out, with Broken Top and Bachelor separating individually along the ridge on a clean day. When the Sisters flatten into one blue shape and Broken Top loses its notch, something has arrived. Awbrey Butte still having trees on it is the middle. When you lose Pilot Butte from downtown, a mile east, the mountains might as well not exist.
Where Bend's smoke usually shows up first, and the places that share its air.
Northern and central California smoke that reaches the high desert rides north up the same interior flow that fills the San Joaquin first.
Sacramento sits at the Central Valley end of that flow, and a bad northern California year shows up there before it crosses into central Oregon.
Out here two separate things decide your air: what arrives, and whether the ground you live on lets it leave.
Smokeshow is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not health, medical, or safety advice. Forecasts are model estimates and can be wrong, sometimes by a lot. Descriptions of what you might smell, see, or feel are generalizations, not predictions about your body. For decisions about your health, outdoor activity, or air quality safety, rely on official sources like AirNow.gov, the National Weather Service, and your local health authorities, and talk to a medical professional about your own situation.