Smoke forecast
Where the smoke over Toronto 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.
From the Toronto Islands the downtown skyline is sharp three kilometres north, the CN Tower reads clean top to bottom, and the lake horizon is a hard line.
The skyline still reads from the Islands but has gone flat and grey, and the lake horizon has softened out of existence.
The CN Tower is still there from the Islands, three kilometres off, but the bank towers around it have merged into one mass.
From Harbourfront the near towers hold while the top of the CN Tower, a kilometre up, fades into the haze.
The pod on the CN Tower disappears. From the ferry docks you can lose the skyline entirely.
Toronto is close enough to the source that smoke often arrives thick rather than aged. Fires in northern Ontario and Quebec sit a few hundred kilometres north and northeast, and their smoke reaches the city in well under a day on northerly flow. What Toronto gets fresh, Detroit and Cleveland get a day later and Boston and New York get a day after that.
June 2023 gave Toronto some of the worst air quality readings in the world, and the 2023 season overall was the worst wildfire year in Canadian history by area burned.
The verdict at the top of this page answers that for Toronto specifically. Toronto is near the front of this corridor rather than the end of it: the fires are a few hundred kilometres north and northeast, so smoke gets here in well under a day and arrives thick rather than aged. 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. Proximity makes it a more volatile answer here than downwind. Smoke that reaches Boston has spent two days spreading into a broad haze; smoke over Toronto is still shaped like a plume, so it can clear as sharply as it arrived and come back the same way.
Northern Ontario or Quebec, a few hundred kilometres north and northeast, on northerly flow. There is rarely anything more complicated to it, and that is the point: Toronto does not need a long-range transport story to have bad air. June 2023 gave the city some of the worst air quality readings in the world, and the 2023 season overall was the worst wildfire year in Canadian history by area burned.
Northern Ontario and Quebec, a few hundred kilometres away rather than a few thousand. Toronto is the near end of a chain, not a stop on it: what this city gets fresh, Detroit and Cleveland get a day later and Boston and New York get a day after that, thinned out. Run the timeline backward on the map and the plume comes down from the north and northeast.
The five-day strip above gives the day-by-day read and the timeline covers the next forty-eight hours hour by hour. Being close to the source cuts both ways: the model is working inside the window where it is most reliable, and it also has less warning, so a new start a few hundred kilometres north can rewrite the day. The page shows where the models disagree rather than hiding the spread.
The CN Tower is the most legible visibility instrument on this corridor, because you can read it vertically as well as horizontally. From the Islands, three kilometres north, it should read clean top to bottom on a good day. When the bank towers around it merge into one mass, you are in the middle. When the pod itself disappears from Harbourfront and the skyline goes from the ferry docks, that is the bottom of the scale.
Where Toronto's smoke goes after it leaves, and the places that share its air.
Gets this city’s plume about a day later, after it has crossed Lake Huron.
Same day as Detroit on most setups, arriving across Lake Erie.
Two days out. By the time it gets there it has spread into a haze that mixes down through the afternoon.
The far end of the corridor, and the last stop for smoke that is thick over the Islands today.
Most smoke in the eastern half of the continent is Canadian, and it is old by the time it arrives.
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.