Dust EPA monitor flag
Daily PM2.5 peaked at 64.7 µg/m³ near Kansas City across 2 covered metros home to 3.0 million people. 1 metro recorded their worst day on record; 2 placed a top-ten day.
Counting the extra PM2.5 above each metro's typical day, this event handed the average affected resident ≈ 2.3 cigarettes. Across everyone living in the affected metros, that is the collective equivalent of ≈ 6.9 million cigarettes. An awareness illustration of outdoor exposure at 22 µg/m³ per cigarette (Berkeley Earth), counting only the event's ranked days; not a medical dose.
Why we think this happened
The supplied evidence supports dust and documents an overlapping or continuing regional occurrence across the proposed members.
EPA monitor flag EPA attached an exceptional-event qualifier to the affected samples. The agency flagged the measurement itself; no separate agency record describes the event.
U.S. EPA Air Quality System and the submitting air monitoring agency · Mar 14, 2025 official
EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IJ, High Winds.) on 48 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2025-03-14, identifying windblown or transported dust as affecting the samples. An informational qualifier is an official submitting-agency flag, not a request for exclusion or an EPA-concurred determination.
National Weather Service Little Rock official
The NWS monthly summary says strong winds transported dust from the southwestern United States into Arkansas on March 14 and 15.
Kansas Department of Health and Environment · Mar 14, 2025 official
KDHE reported that strong winds were transporting dust and smoke from Oklahoma wildfires and eastern Kansas fires into Kansas, with unhealthy to hazardous air quality possible.
See every retained source and limitation ↓
Sequence: Kansas City (Mar 14) → Little Rock (Mar 15)
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
EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IJ, High Winds.) on 48 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2025-03-14, identifying windblown or transported dust as affecting the samples. An informational qualifier is an official…
View supporting source ↗Air-mass movement
KDHE reported that strong winds were transporting dust and smoke from Oklahoma wildfires and eastern Kansas fires into Kansas, with unhealthy to hazardous air quality possible.
View transport source ↗Local response
NWS Wichita documented the March 14 dust storm across Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas during the strong-wind event.
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 “Dust” explanation; it does not assign the cause by itself.
Kansas City, MO-KS
Monitor comparison window 2025-03-11 to 2025-03-17 · PM2.5 target: HERITAGE PARK
383% above nearby days
93% higher than surrounding days
526% higher than surrounding days
383% higher than surrounding days
526% higher than surrounding days
About the same as surrounding days
35% lower than surrounding days
About the same as surrounding days
About the same as surrounding days
14% lower than surrounding days
About the same as surrounding days
9% higher than surrounding days
93% higher than surrounding days
Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway, AR
Monitor comparison window 2025-03-12 to 2025-03-18 · PM2.5 target: PARR
20% below nearby days
12% lower than surrounding days
24% lower than surrounding days
20% lower than surrounding days
24% lower than surrounding days
85% lower than surrounding days
About the same as surrounding days
About the same as surrounding days
About the same as surrounding days
12% lower 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.
Air-mass reconstruction
NOAA HYSPLIT traces the air arriving at each metro backward for 72 hours. Multiple arrival times and heights show whether the broad path is stable—or sensitive to assumptions about when and where the polluted layer arrived.
Air arriving near Kansas City
Peak-date arrivals · 2025-03-14
Each line begins 72 hours before arrival and points toward the metro. Color represents arrival height; repeated lines represent 00, 06, 12, and 18 UTC arrival assumptions. A path can show where the air traveled, but it cannot prove which source added the PM2.5.
Air arriving near Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway
Peak-date arrivals · 2025-03-15
Each line begins 72 hours before arrival and points toward the metro. Color represents arrival height; repeated lines represent 00, 06, 12, and 18 UTC arrival assumptions. A path can show where the air traveled, but it cannot prove which source added the PM2.5.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kansas City, MO-KS | 64.7 µg/m³ | 2.9 | Mar 14, 2025 | #3 of its top days |
| Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway, AR | 50.5 µg/m³ | 2.3 | Mar 15, 2025 | Worst day on record |
"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.
AQS PM2.5 qualifier IJ — High Winds.
EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted informational qualifier (IJ, High Winds.) on 48 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2025-03-14, identifying windblown or transported dust as affecting the samples. An informational qualifier is an official submitting-agency flag, not a request for exclusion or an EPA-concurred determination.
KDHE Issues Air Quality Health Advisory due to Dust and Smoke
KDHE reported that strong winds were transporting dust and smoke from Oklahoma wildfires and eastern Kansas fires into Kansas, with unhealthy to hazardous air quality possible.
The NWS monthly summary says strong winds transported dust from the southwestern United States into Arkansas on March 14 and 15.
Severe Storms on March 14-15, 2025
NWS Little Rock documented dust transported from west Texas and southeast New Mexico across Arkansas on March 14–15, producing haze across the state during this event.
March 14th Extremely Strong Winds
NWS Wichita documented the March 14 dust storm across Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas during the strong-wind event.
EPA monitor flag EPA attached an exceptional-event qualifier to the affected samples. The agency flagged the measurement itself; no separate agency record describes the event.
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.