I guess I should have been paying a little bit more attention to the vertically integrated smoke forecast and not just the near-surface smoke forecast. rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrr/H… says the Bay Area is going to be stuck with dark orange skies for at least another 40 hours...

Sep 9, 2020 · 7:48 PM UTC

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Worth repeating the link to sources (and to future runs):
Replying to @davidbaron
In general, these HRRR smoke images can be found at: rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrr/H… for the southwest US or rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrr/H… for the whole country. The 48 hour long runs are done only every 6 hours; other runs just extend 24 hours.
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And now the 18:00 UTC (11:00 PDT) run is mostly done. Near-surface smoke rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrr/H… shows Bay Area getting worse tomorrow morning (smoke from Dolan Fire, Monterey County) before getting better. Vertically integrated smoke still bad rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrr/H…
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Now the 00:00 UTC (17:00 PDT) run is done. Vertically integrated smoke forecasts a bit of relief from dark skies by Friday. Maybe 50% less smoke? Still bad. rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrr/H… Near-surface smoke shows things getting a bit better Thursday evening. rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrr/H…
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Today's 18:00 UTC (11:00 PDT) run shows some reasons for optimism. The vertically integrated smoke forecast shows the western edge of the think smoke band moving east, and clearing over the bay area from west to east over Monday morning. rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrr/H…
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It's not clear that the near-surface smoke forecast has been that reliable lately, but it seems to show the possibility of more clearing at the surface a bit after that, assuming its trend continues rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrr/H…
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The 00:00 UTC (17:00 PDT) run has moved back a little bit on timing, but is still showing a pattern that seems likely to lead to improvements on Monday or Tuesday.
Note that the NWS publicly stated that their models aren't working for this, so I'd book this in "who knows" territory.
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Based particularly on nitter.vloup.ch/NWSBayArea/statu… I think what they were saying is that forecasts for things like temperature were not accounting for smoke... not that the smoke model itself (which is separate from other models) is broken.
Replying to @disco_lemonade1
The models do not seem to be keeping up with the thick layer of smoke as far as temperature forecast data, visibility, etc. We just have so much smoke over us right now. Yesterday the models were way off and we expect the same today (for afternoon temperatures).
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