Images on the ground show the Manhattan skyline enveloped in wildfire smoke, but the view from above showed the true scope of the poor air quality across the Midwest and Eastern United States. 

Dakota Smith is a satellite analyst and communicator at Colorado State University’s Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA). He’s been compiling the Institute’s satellite images of the skies during this unprecedented event, and has also been monitoring the wildfires in Canada that have burned nearly one million acres and have produced the plumes of smoke that have drifted across the region. 

“I think this imagery is a really great tool to educate people about what’s going on,” Smith said. “I remember the first time I saw imagery like this, and it gave me an entirely different and more accurate perspective of our weather and how it is formed.” 

CIRA has been tracking the smoke since May 5, when thick smoke from the wildfires in Quebec began to move south and impact air quality in the western U.S. In early June, the fires persisted – and the smoke began to impact the eastern half of the U.S.