Smoke forecast
Where the smoke over Missoula 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.
Lolo Peak stands clean on the south horizon, about fifteen miles out, and the Bitterroots behind it hold their layers.
Lolo Peak has gone flat and blue, and Snowbowl on the north side of the valley, about eight miles up, is losing its ridgeline.
Blue Mountain still reads southwest at roughly five miles, but the valley walls have turned into silhouettes with no texture.
From downtown the M on Mount Sentinel is still there, about a mile off, while the top of the ridge above it fades out.
Mount Sentinel goes. From the Higgins Avenue bridge you lose the hillside that defines the whole town.
Missoula sits in a valley that traps what blows into it. Smoke here arrives from fires across western Montana and the Idaho panhandle, and from as far as Washington, Oregon, and interior British Columbia on westerly flow. The valley's own geography is the second half of the story: cool air settles overnight, caps the valley, and holds smoke at ground level long after the fire behavior upwind has calmed down.
The August and September inversions are why Missoula's bad air often outlasts the event that caused it. Residents here have measured their summers by it for decades, and the 2017 and 2021 seasons both produced multi-week stretches where the valley never fully cleared.
The verdict at the top of this page answers that for Missoula specifically. It reads the forecast model over the valley floor, which is the part that matters here, because the valley caps itself overnight, the air on the valley floor and the air above the inversion up on Snowbowl can be two different stories on the same morning, and the one you breathe is the low one. Everything shown is a model estimate rather than a measurement at your address.
That is the headline answer above: the clear time, meaning the first stretch of at least six straight hours where the forecast drops below the Hazy threshold and stays there. The six-hour rule matters more in Missoula than in most places, because a valley that has capped itself will give up an hour of cleaner air and then take it straight back. What the model has to show before it calls an all-clear here is the valley actually flushing, not the wind upwind changing its mind.
There are two different reasons and they need different answers. Either something new arrived from western Montana, the Idaho panhandle, or a westerly push out of Washington, Oregon, or interior British Columbia. Or nothing new arrived and the valley simply never let go of what came in days ago. That second case is the one Missoula is known for, and it is why the air here often stays bad after the fire behavior upwind has calmed down. Scrub the timeline backward twelve hours: if the plume is not moving, you are looking at the valley, not at a fire.
Most of it is western Montana and the Idaho panhandle, close enough that a new start can change the air the same day. The rest arrives on westerly flow from Washington, Oregon, and interior British Columbia, hundreds of miles out, and that smoke is aged and spread thin by the time it crosses the Bitterroot divide. Run the timeline backward on the map and the direction of travel is visible rather than asserted.
The five-day strip above gives the day-by-day read and the detailed timeline covers the next forty-eight hours hour by hour. One Missoula-specific caution: a wind shift upwind does not automatically buy you a clear morning here, because the valley has to flush before the ground-level air changes. Smoke forecasts are sharpest one to two days out, and the page shows where the models disagree rather than hiding the spread.
Run the valley from the outside in, which is what the landmark list above does. Look south for Lolo Peak first, then check whether the valley walls still have texture or have gone to flat silhouettes, then look at the M on Mount Sentinel from the Higgins Avenue bridge. When Sentinel itself goes, you have lost the hillside the whole town is oriented around, and you do not need a number to tell you that is the worst of it.
Where Missoula's smoke usually shows up first, and the places that share its air.
Directly upwind on the westerly flow that carries Washington, Oregon, and interior BC smoke into western Montana. Spokane reads it first.
The central Idaho fires that reach Missoula pass over the Treasure Valley on the way, so Boise is an early look at the same air.
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.