I’m heading to tiny Mitchell, Oregon for a group adventure with some friends and am wondering if there’s any way to use Google Maps to check air quality in addition to my best route from Eugene?
Years ago we all just woke up and were surprised by it being foggy, cloudy, or smokey, often without being able to ascertain the cause. Nowadays we have billions of sensors deployed across the planet and a wealth of information that can show an extraordinary level of detail for almost any point on the globe. Certainly within the United States of America, as managed by various government agencies. But does it extend to an Air Quality overlay in Google Maps? Of course it does!
There are various other ways to ascertain the weather, climate conditions, and AQ in a location, but Google’s a splendid place to start. The trick is to become familiar with overlays. You might have used them to see a topological or satellite view rather than its cartoon map, but there’s lots more available. Let’s have a look before you head into Mitchell, Oregon, where the air quality, in fact, is quite awful right now due to regional wildfires.
FIND YOUR SPOT IN GOOGLE MAPS
If you search for a location, Google Maps not only shows you that spot, but often has some interesting additional information and even photos of the location, as you can see:
With a population of 130 you weren’t kidding when you called it a tiny place. That’s a blink-once-and-you’ll-miss-it size town in a gorgeous area of Oregon. But the display above is optimized to show roads and routes, not air quality. To get that added, click on the “Layers” button along the bottom. It offers up the most common layers:
Still no air quality, but if you click on “More” it turns out that there are many more layer options available:
We know that the poor air quality is caused by wildfires, but to get AQ overlaid itself, click on “Air Quality”. Instantly the map takes on an alarming shade:
The legend along the bottom shows that this deep fuchsia is a harbinger of very poor air quality. Not good.
Zoom out and you can see that the entire region is under an enormous cloud caused by wildfires:
That barely visible red icon in the center, just left of the darkest region? That’s poor little Mitchell, Oregon.
Google Maps does a great job with these overlays and it’s quite interesting to see how poor air quality relates both to region and events, but it turns out that, no surprise, you can glean more information online. Let’s check it out…
LEARN MORE ABOUT AIR QUALITY
One place that you can check for air quality and its interrelationship with weather is the National Weather Service. Simply go to forecast.weather.gov and type in Mitchell, OR to see its forecast. Today and tomorrow? Not so good:
Hot enough for a heat advisory and horrible air quality.
But the national responsibility for monitoring air quality falls on the Environmental Protection Agency, and they have one of the best reporting sites because it’s simple and straightforward. Go to AirNow.gov and again search for Mitchell, OR to find out that:
There’s no way around it, you and your pals need to either reroute your big expedition or delay at least a few weeks to wait until the fires are extinguished and the air quality is back to the usual crisp mountain conditions that typify a mountain town like Mitchell. Good luck!
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