Mixed causes Corroborated
Daily PM2.5 peaked at 27.3 µg/m³ near Colorado Springs across 1 covered metro home to 777,634 people.
Why we think this happened
Contemporaneous evidence identifies both transported and local dust and New Mexico wildfire smoke as components of the Colorado Springs episode. The event is therefore resolved as mixed.
Corroborated Independent reporting agrees on the cause, with no agency determination, monitor flag, or published assessment behind it.
Phys.org · May 11, 2022 corroborates
The same report identifies New Mexico wildfire smoke as another component of the mixed dust-and-smoke episode affecting Colorado Springs.
koaa.com · May 10, 2022 corroborates
krdo.com · May 11, 2022 corroborates
Evidence path
A cause is more convincing when the record connects three things: something happened, the air mass moved toward the region, and local instruments responded. Here is how much of that chain is documented for this event.
Source or mechanism
The same report identifies New Mexico wildfire smoke as another component of the mixed dust-and-smoke episode affecting Colorado Springs.
View supporting source ↗Air-mass movement
The retained record does not yet show how air traveled from the proposed source to these metros. A trajectory replay or dated plume analysis belongs here.
Local response
EPA monitors recorded the event across 1 metro. The peak daily concentration is roughly 1.2 cigarette-equivalents at the outdoor daily rate.
Inspect the pollutant and weather signals ↓Event autopsy
Before, during, and after the episode: nearby pollutant monitors and surface-weather stations show what changed. This context tests the “Mixed causes” explanation; it does not assign the cause by itself.
Colorado Springs, CO
Monitor comparison window 2022-05-06 to 2022-05-12 · PM2.5 target: COLORADO SPRINGS - COLLEGE COLLEGE
281% above nearby days
15% higher than surrounding days
34% lower than surrounding days
281% higher than surrounding days
34% lower than surrounding days
13% lower than surrounding days
About the same as surrounding days
26% lower than surrounding days
About the same as surrounding days
15% higher than surrounding days
Source: U.S. EPA AirData daily observations and, where available, nearby ASOS/AWOS surface observations. Values are descriptive medians over the retained monitor set; missing measurements remain missing. Transport and source evidence remain separate layers because this instrument pattern does not assign a cause by itself.
Episode peak
-- cigarettes
The smoke map's scale, replayed over this event: the surface interpolates between covered metros' daily records, framed to the affected region. Hover for a reading, click a metro to pin it to the card. Days a monitor did not report draw nothing.
Views from the selected metro
Select a metro on the map to see nearby cameras. Where an operator archive reaches the event, drag the divider to compare two moments, adjust either date and time, or play the available event-day frames. Camera imagery is visual context, not an air-quality measurement or proof of smoke.
No useful public camera views are currently available within 80 km of this metro.
| Metro | Peak PM2.5 | Cigarettes, whole event | Peak day | All-time standing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colorado Springs, CO | 27.3 µg/m³ | 1.2 | May 9, 2022 | #18 of its top days |
"Cigarettes, whole event" totals a metro's ranked event days at 22 µg/m³ per cigarette: what a person outdoors there breathed across the event, as the illustration. "All-time standing" is where this episode's days sit in each metro's ranked record (worst-area measure, since 1999). Full local context is on each metro's Air Records page.
Public evidence library
Each card states what a source supports—and what it does not. Official records, research, reporting, community observations, and transparent inferences remain visibly different kinds of evidence.
Dust and smoke are turning Colorado's blue skies red. Here's where it's coming from
The same report identifies New Mexico wildfire smoke as another component of the mixed dust-and-smoke episode affecting Colorado Springs.
Corroborated Independent reporting agrees on the cause, with no agency determination, monitor flag, or published assessment behind it.
This episode was grouped from the monitor record by the catalog pipeline and given its cause from the evidence listed above. It has not been individually reviewed and signed off, so its boundaries, cause, and name may change as evidence accumulates. Grouping policy common_sense_root_cause_grouping.v2. The cause label reflects the assembled evidence above, not an IAQng detection formula. If it is wrong, tell us.