Wildfire smoke Likely
Daily PM2.5 peaked at 91.7 µg/m³ near Miami across 1 covered metro home to 6.5 million people. 1 metro recorded their worst day on record.
Counting the extra PM2.5 above each metro's typical day, this event handed the average affected resident ≈ 5.5 cigarettes. Across everyone living in the affected metros, that is the collective equivalent of ≈ 36 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 same-day NWS Miami discussion attributes smoke across portions of the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro to a fire in northern Palm Beach County and says HYSPLIT captured the plume's southwest trajectory. The source and transport are explicit, although the discussion does not quantify the fire's share of the metro daily PM2.5 value.
Likely Applicable reporting or a supported inference makes this the best current causal explanation.
National Weather Service Miami via Iowa Environmental Mesonet · Jun 3, 2011 corroborates
NWS Miami continued smoke in Palm Beach, Hendry, and Collier counties because of a northern Palm Beach County fire, and reported that HYSPLIT represented the northeast-to-southwest plume trajectory well.
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
NWS Miami continued smoke in Palm Beach, Hendry, and Collier counties because of a northern Palm Beach County fire, and reported that HYSPLIT represented the northeast-to-southwest plume trajectory well.
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 4.2 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 “Wildfire smoke” explanation; it does not assign the cause by itself.
Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL
Monitor comparison window 2011-05-31 to 2011-06-07 · PM2.5 target: Belle Glade
145% above nearby days
About the same as surrounding days
9% lower than surrounding days
145% higher than surrounding days
9% lower than surrounding days
67% lower than surrounding days
7% higher than surrounding days
25% lower than surrounding days
35% lower than surrounding days
About the same as surrounding days
About the same as 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.
| Metro | Peak PM2.5 | Cigarettes, whole event | Peak day | All-time standing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL | 91.7 µg/m³ | 6.3 | Jun 3, 2011 | 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.
National Weather Service Miami via Iowa Environmental Mesonet
NWS Miami continued smoke in Palm Beach, Hendry, and Collier counties because of a northern Palm Beach County fire, and reported that HYSPLIT represented the northeast-to-southwest plume trajectory well.
A retained source supports the attributed cause for the stated place and dates.
The smoke statement covers portions of the Miami metro rather than every metro monitor.
Likely Applicable reporting or a supported inference makes this the best current causal explanation.
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.