For anyone visiting N. California in the next 2-4 weeks
 

If anyone is planning on visiting northern California in the next few week I'd highly recommend you either cancel/postpone, or have a plan B (and plans C, D etc) ready.

There are three massive fires and several smaller ones affecting huge parts of the north state. Highway 50 that connects Sacramento and Lake Tahoe is closed to all traffic for about 40 miles. Air quality is unhealthy to sensitive groups just about everywhere, hazardous in a lot of places and beyond hazardous in parts of the Sacramento area, Tahoe Basin and elsewhere.

Just not a good time to come (parts of the coast are fine)

https://aqicn.org/map/california/

I'll add that the stationary maps in any link will show just a snapshot - air quality is a moving target. For instance, where I am generally it's bad in the morning then gets quite a bit better late afternoon & it's forecast to improve considerable starting Monday (who knows for how long). For those who must visit & know their way around, it is possible to dodge the worst of it, the coast generally as mentioned & other areas, too. So flexibility is what's needed as the wind patterns shift & fortunately there are online resources that show you & also predictions.

https://www.airnow.gov/
https://www2.purpleair.com/

https://www.weather.gov/eka/AreaSmokeForecast
https://hwp-viz.gsd.esrl.noaa.gov/smoke/ (zoom in, click on "near surface smoke")

There are multiple road and lane closures throughout Northern California. My sister is supposed to meet us on the Eastern Sierra side in about 10 days. She's coming from Mendocino County and does the same overnight stop every year... but not this year. Between the closures and the air quality, she's already decided to alter her route and has made a reservation somewhere else. Now, we're just all keeping our fingers crossed that things improve a bit and she'll be able to make the drive at all.

QuickMap

MmePerdu, you might find the ventusky.com website helpful. It's in real time, not a snapshot, although you can look back to compare wind conditions throughout a day and on previous days. It shows wind direction and speed, and you can zoom in to pretty small areas. It's easy to see how smoke gets driven and trapped in some places and how air movements during the day make conditions during some hours better or worse than others.

I guess I wasn't clear.. By snapshot I meant that, yes, real time, but any reading is only at that time in that place, not necessarily a predictor of conditions later or tomorrow.

Jean, just had a look, very interesting. We're talking past each other here, by real time I meant simply that readings are constantly updated & you must mean on that site it's in constant motion. Two views, motion & stop motion. In any case, for someone traveling around they'd really want to keep an eye on the maps with time-lapse predictions of where the smoke will be moving. Maybe this site does that too, I'll need to explore it more. Thanks.

The Ventusky site is memorizing, and fascinating. I'm trying to understand a bit more about it, Coriolis Effect and all.

They do have a forecast three days out for air quality. On my computer there is a popup calendar on the lower left. For example, three days from now:
https://www.ventusky.com/?p=38.39;-1...=20210831/2100

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fod...3df2d082eb.jpg

There is a similar site called Windfinder that also lets you change the date.
https://www.windfinder.com/#5/39.2323/-94.8557

So by Tuesday my air is better but poor Tahoe gets socked in again. I wonder if all these websites are as a result of the current drama or if they've been around awhile. In any case, even though what it shows is a nightmare, it's also fascinating.

I found them prior to a 2018 trip to the coastal Wales, wondering what might be in store for us. (We were lucky.) But the current stuff has increased my viewing. I'm trying to understand it, but my brain is too small.

It's terrible. Our son who lives in SF has been on TDY on the East Coast for the past couple of weeks and is not only trying to arrange a longer stay, but a permanent transfer. In the short year+ he's been in California his experience has been a series of rolling blackouts, orange skies, and poor air quality. On top of the high cost of living, crime, and homelessness (he's routinely accosted on his way to work), he finds himself pining for the simple pleasures of the dysfunctional East Coast. That's saying something.

Terrible to hear about the fires. Did Harbin springs manage to re-open after the last bad fires caused havoc there?

Thank you janisj and everyone for the links. We are traveling from NC to San Francisco up the coast to Portland. Looks like we will have to keep a close eye on everything. Weve already moved some plans around...may end up taking coast road back down or booking it down the I-5 for hotel stay. Time will tell...

I have lived in the SF Bay Area for my entire life. Last summer we were impacted by the fires for about 2 -3 weeks, but not the entire summer by any means.

This summer, despite the very real fact that a great deal of California (and, in fact, a large portion of the US) is a mess, SF & the immediate surrounding counties are some of the few places where the AQ has been good to excellent all summer. We had maybe 1 or 2 days of poor AQ, but absolutely nothing like the rest of California...and nothing like we had last summer. My husband and I are outdoors every day, and the skies couldn't be more clear, the temperature couldn't be more comfortable.

However, if you're planning to drive to Yosemite, Tahoe, or any place more than 50 miles from SF, then, yes, you're better off staying home. But if your destination is the city of SF and the Bay Area, you have nothing to worry about.

Your son has certainly had a horrible experience in California. I can see why he would be uncomfortable living in a place replete with crime and assaults by the homeless.In any case, sounds like this is definitely not the place for him and I hope he is able to free himself of whatever obligations he maintains here. Nobody wants to live in a place that they experience as being hostile or frightening.

Nevertheless, I think it might be prudent on a travel forum not to disseminate misleading and/or biased information about a place without having actually spent a significant time there oneself. Of course, experienced Fodorites know to take things with a large grain of salt (were one to believe everything one reads here about pickpockets in Barcelona, food in England, or disorganization in Italy, one might be afraid to leave one's couch!) The problem is that "newbies" who come here for information can be easily misled by somebody whose opinion about a place is based on second-hand information.

“…the Lake burst upon us—a noble sheet of blue water lifted six thousand three hundred feet above the level of the sea and walled in by a rim of snow-clad mountain peaks that towered aloft full three thousand feet higher still!”

“As it lay there with the shadows of the mountains brilliantly photographed upon its still surface, I thought it must surely be the fairest picture the whole earth affords.”

“The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine. Bracing and delicious. And why shouldn’t it be? It is the same the angels breathe."

--- Mark Twain upon first seeing Lake Tahoe in September 1861



Here's hoping it's like this again very soon. Good luck to everyone in the affected area.

Thanks again, LucieV, for saying what I was too annoyed to say myself. California is obviously not the place for him. He sounds very young, or maybe it's in the telling.

He must work near the Civic Center.

Also, for prospective visitors, all National Forests in California are closed.thru September 17. No hiking, no camping, no day trips for picnics. Closed.

fwiw; I initially said it in a much less diplomatic way, which apparently did not pass the smell test. Live and learn, even in the basement.

This isn't the basement, Lucie.