Smoke forecast
Where the smoke over Whitefish 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 Glacier peaks read sharp to the east, twenty-five miles and more across the Flathead, and the Swan Range holds its whole ridgeline south of them.
The Glacier skyline has flattened into one blue band and the Swans have lost their notches, though Big Mountain still shows its runs.
The ranges across the valley are gone. Big Mountain, five miles north of downtown, is a silhouette with the ski runs barely readable on it.
From City Beach the far shore of Whitefish Lake, about two miles up, disappears into grey.
Big Mountain goes. From Central Avenue you lose the mountain the whole town is built to look at.
The Flathead has a different upwind neighbour than the rest of Montana. Interior British Columbia sits directly north, and a bad BC fire season puts smoke over Whitefish and Kalispell repeatedly without a single acre burning in the United States. On top of that come the usual western Montana and Idaho panhandle fires, plus Washington and Oregon smoke on westerly flow, and fires inside Glacier itself.
The valley then does what mountain valleys do. Cool air settles overnight, caps the basin, and holds smoke at ground level after the flow upwind has already shifted. The 2017 season is the local marker, when the Sprague Fire burned in Glacier and took Sperry Chalet with it, and the valley spent weeks without a clear view of the park.
Whitefish is one town in a valley that breathes as a single unit. Kalispell sits fifteen miles south and is the valley’s population centre, Columbia Falls holds the western entrance to Glacier, and Bigfork sits at the top of Flathead Lake. The lake and the surrounding ranges mean smoke that settles into the Flathead tends to stay in the Flathead, so a bad stretch in Whitefish is a bad stretch in all of them. Glacier National Park sits immediately east, and on smoky weeks the Going-to-the-Sun corridor loses the views it exists for.
The verdict at the top of this page answers that for Whitefish and, in practice, for the Flathead. Kalispell, Columbia Falls, and Bigfork are close enough and low enough in the same basin that a bad hour here is a bad hour there. It reads the forecast model over the valley floor and states the level in plain language, from All clear through Smokeshow. 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 where the forecast drops below the Hazy threshold and stays there. The Flathead is slow to give that up. The lake and the ranges around it mean smoke that settles into this basin tends to stay in this basin, so the clear time here can land well after the flow over British Columbia has already turned.
The answer is usually British Columbia, and that surprises people who are watching American fire maps. Interior BC sits directly north of the Flathead, and a bad season up there puts smoke over Whitefish and Kalispell repeatedly with nothing burning in the United States at all. The rest of the time it is western Montana, the Idaho panhandle, a westerly push out of Washington or Oregon, or a fire inside Glacier itself.
Four sources, and they do not behave alike. Interior British Columbia is the dominant one and comes almost straight down from the north. Western Montana and the Idaho panhandle are close enough to change the air the same day. Washington and Oregon smoke arrives aged on westerly flow. And fires inside Glacier put smoke over the valley from a few miles east, which is the case where the park itself is both the source and the thing you can no longer see. Run the timeline backward on the map to see which one you are in.
The five-day strip above gives the day-by-day read and the timeline covers the next forty-eight hours hour by hour. If you are planning a Glacier day, watch the strip rather than the current hour: on smoky weeks the Going-to-the-Sun corridor loses the views it exists for well before the air is bad enough to change anyone’s plans, and the model is sharpest one to two days out.
Look east across the Flathead at the Glacier peaks first. When they flatten into one blue band with the Swan Range losing its notches, something has arrived. Then check Big Mountain to the north: whether you can still read the ski runs on it is the middle of the scale, and when the mountain the whole town is built to look at disappears from Central Avenue, you are at the top of it.
Where Whitefish's smoke usually shows up first, and the places that share its air.
The westerly flow that carries Washington and Oregon smoke into the Flathead crosses Spokane first. It does not cover the Flathead’s real problem, which comes straight down from BC.
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.