Today is the first big smoke day of 2026. The past five years we've had some brutal streaks of smoke days from all the smoke coming south from Canada and northern Minnesota but this one is extra bad. The AQI this morning was 480 when I woke up at 6am. Later this morning it got a little better and was in the 340 range.
This morning the AQI was 340. Healthy is 0–50.
I read a post from Josh Beckman in Chicago who had a conversation with his daughter that was very similar to the one I had with my son on the way to camp this morning. He wanted to know if the fires would make their way down to us. I explained what I understand about the jet stream and the river-like air up in the atmosphere that pushes the smoke around the country. So, we were going to get all the smoke from those fires but the fires wouldn't make it to Minneapolis.
I'm not a fan of this smoke, which isn't a surprise as I can't think of any person who is a fan of not being able to breathe. As I was thinking about this smoke and how terrible it was, I noticed that I was having the conversations with all sorts of different people about the smoke.
It got me to think that maybe there was a bright side of this smoke - a very tiny one but something good none the less. This smoke from northern Minnesota is affecting people thousands of miles away. So, on my calls with people in other parts of the country, we all talk about how they're dealing with the smoke. If there was a silver lining to this, it's that we're all in this together. A shared misery that connects us.