Smoke forecast
Where the smoke over Seattle 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 mountain is out. Rainier stands clear to the southeast, about sixty miles off, and the Olympics hold their ridgeline across the Sound.
Rainier is gone and the Olympics have flattened to a grey band, but Bainbridge reads clean across Elliott Bay.
The Olympics have disappeared entirely. Bainbridge, about five miles west, is still there but has lost its trees.
From Alki the downtown towers hold, two and a half miles across the bay, while the Space Needle softens against the sky.
The tops of the downtown towers go. From the waterfront you lose the far side of Elliott Bay completely.
Seattle gets smoke from two directions and they behave differently. Fires in the Cascades and eastern Washington push smoke west through the passes on easterly flow, which arrives fast and clears fast. Fires in Oregon, California, and interior British Columbia deliver smoke aloft that settles into the Puget Sound basin and sits, sometimes for a week, because the same marine geography that keeps the city mild also keeps air from moving.
August and September 2020 is the reference event. Smoke from the Oregon and California fires pushed Seattle to the worst air quality of any major city on earth for several days, and the sky stayed a flat orange-grey for the better part of two weeks.
The verdict at the top of this page answers that for Seattle specifically. The city has the longest sightline of any page on this site, which makes the top of the scale unusually informative: Rainier at roughly sixty miles is a check no skyline city can offer, and "the mountain is out" is a genuine reading rather than a figure of speech. 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. Seattle produces two very different versions of that answer. Smoke pushed west through the Cascade passes on easterly flow arrives fast and leaves fast. Smoke that settled into the Puget Sound basin from Oregon or California can sit for a week, because the marine geography that keeps the city mild also keeps its air from moving.
It depends which of Seattle’s two mechanisms is running, and they do not feel alike. An easterly flow event means the Cascades or eastern Washington are burning and the passes are funnelling it west: sharp, fast, over quickly. A settled event means Oregon, California, or interior British Columbia smoke came in aloft and dropped into the basin, and that is the one that turns the sky flat orange-grey for days, as it did through August and September 2020.
From the east through the Cascade passes, or from the south and north aloft. The Cascades and eastern Washington are the near source; Oregon, California, and interior British Columbia are the far ones, and their smoke arrives high before it settles. Run the timeline backward on the map and the two are easy to tell apart: pass-driven smoke comes over the crest in a line, and settled smoke is already everywhere when it appears.
The five-day strip above gives the day-by-day read and the timeline covers forty-eight hours hour by hour. The honest caveat for Seattle is that "better tomorrow" is a much safer bet on an easterly-flow event than on a settled one. 2020 is the reference for how long the basin can hold smoke once it has it. Forecasts are sharpest one to two days out and the page shows where the models disagree.
Look for Rainier to the southeast first. It is sixty miles out, so it goes before anything else does, and losing it is the earliest real signal you get. Then the Olympics across the Sound: flattened to a grey band, then gone. Then Bainbridge: still there but with its trees gone is the middle of the scale. When the tops of the downtown towers go and you lose the far side of Elliott Bay from the waterfront, that is the bottom.
Where Seattle's smoke usually shows up first, and the places that share its air.
The Oregon and California smoke that settles into Puget Sound comes up the I-5 corridor, and Portland is under it first.
Cascade and eastern Washington fires push smoke west through the passes. Spokane sits on the other side of them, reading the same fires from the inland end.
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.