Mixed causes Possible
Daily PM2.5 peaked at 42.8 µg/m³ near Albany across 1 covered metro home to 913,485 people.
Counting the extra PM2.5 above each metro's typical day, this event handed the average affected resident ≈ 1.6 cigarettes. Across everyone living in the affected metros, that is the collective equivalent of ≈ 1.5 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
A sharp Albany PM2.5 increase coincided with higher carbon monoxide, ozone, and sulfur dioxide; calm, hazy surface conditions; and an exact-date high-pressure pattern. NOAA independently documented a mixed-origin smoke plume across New York and the surrounding eastern corridor. Together this supports a possible mixed smoke-and-pollution episode, but not a locally apportioned wildfire attribution.
Possible This is a transparent hypothesis supported by limited evidence or an explicit inference, not a definitive attribution.
NOAA Satellite Analysis Branch · Sep 13, 2005 corroborates
On September 13, NOAA mapped a broad smoke-and-haze mass from the Southeast into the eastern Great Lakes and southern Ontario and Quebec, with thin smoke extending off New England and Long Island. Analysts attributed it to a mixture of Idaho and Montana wildfire smoke and lower-Mississippi agricultural or control burns.
NOAA Satellite Analysis Branch · Sep 12, 2005 hypothesis
NOAA satellite analysts observed thin smoke from Idaho and Montana fires moving across portions of New York and New England on the day before the Albany PM2.5 spike, with the plume connected through southeastern Ontario and Lake Ontario.
National Weather Service Albany Area Forecast Discussion via Iowa Environmental Mesonet · Sep 13, 2005 hypothesis
The exact-date NWS discussion added haze to the forecast after 13 straight dry days and described a high-pressure ridge, a slack pressure gradient, and light winds across the region.
Inference, not direct attribution
official_satellite_smoke_corridor_surface_haze_combustion_fingerprint_possible.v1: This inference is recorded in the catalog methodology.
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
On September 13, NOAA mapped a broad smoke-and-haze mass from the Southeast into the eastern Great Lakes and southern Ontario and Quebec, with thin smoke extending off New England and Long Island. Analysts attributed it to a mixture of Idaho and…
View supporting source ↗Air-mass movement
On September 13, NOAA mapped a broad smoke-and-haze mass from the Southeast into the eastern Great Lakes and southern Ontario and Quebec, with thin smoke extending off New England and Long Island. Analysts attributed it to a mixture of Idaho and…
View transport source ↗Local response
EPA monitors recorded the event across 1 metro. The peak daily concentration is roughly 1.9 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.
Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY
Monitor comparison window 2005-09-10 to 2005-09-16 · PM2.5 target: ALBANY COUNTY HEALTH DEPT
222% above nearby days
9 calm hours observed
Haze reported during 4 hours
222% higher than surrounding days
25% higher than surrounding days
46% higher than surrounding days
94% higher than surrounding days
5 kt maximum · 9 of 24 observed hours calm
6 observed hours at or below 3 miles
63°F to 89°F
93% maximum
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY | 42.8 µg/m³ | 1.9 | Sep 13, 2005 | #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.
National Weather Service Albany Area Forecast Discussion via Iowa Environmental Mesonet
The exact-date NWS discussion added haze to the forecast after 13 straight dry days and described a high-pressure ridge, a slack pressure gradient, and light winds across the region.
This source supports a possible mechanism or occurrence; it does not establish the cause by itself.
The discussion documents a retention-friendly weather pattern but does not attribute Albany's PM2.5 to smoke or diagnose a surface inversion.
NOAA Satellite Analysis Branch
On September 13, NOAA mapped a broad smoke-and-haze mass from the Southeast into the eastern Great Lakes and southern Ontario and Quebec, with thin smoke extending off New England and Long Island. Analysts attributed it to a mixture of Idaho and Montana wildfire smoke and lower-Mississippi agricultural or control burns.
A retained source supports the attributed cause for the stated place and dates.
The mapped regional corridors bracket Albany but the text does not explicitly place the city inside the plume or quantify ground-level smoke PM2.5 there.
National Weather Service surface observations via Iowa Environmental Mesonet
Albany County Airport, 13.4 kilometers from the target PM2.5 monitor, recorded a median wind speed of three knots. Eighteen of 24 observations were at or below three knots, nine were calm, haze or mist appeared in 11 observations, and visibility fell to 1.75 miles.
This source supports a possible mechanism or occurrence; it does not establish the cause by itself.
The airport and regulatory PM2.5 monitor are nearby but not co-located.
NOAA Satellite Analysis Branch
NOAA satellite analysts observed thin smoke from Idaho and Montana fires moving across portions of New York and New England on the day before the Albany PM2.5 spike, with the plume connected through southeastern Ontario and Lake Ontario.
This source supports a possible mechanism or occurrence; it does not establish the cause by itself.
The narrative is regional and does not explicitly name Albany or establish how much smoke reached the surface there.
U.S. EPA AirData
EPA observations show daily PM2.5 of 42.2 micrograms per cubic meter, more than three times the adjacent-window comparison. Carbon monoxide, ozone, and sulfur dioxide also increased, providing a combustion-associated pollution fingerprint during the event.
This source supports a possible mechanism or occurrence; it does not establish the cause by itself.
Only one federal-reference PM2.5 monitor sampled the event date, so the particle increase is not independently replicated across multiple Albany monitors.
Possible This is a transparent hypothesis supported by limited evidence or an explicit inference, not a definitive attribution.
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.