Canada pollen season, wildfire smoke and air quality today

Friday, October 9: SkyPollen does not yet have a pollen level for Canadian cities, so this page does not show one. What we can show is the air itself: the CAMS global model puts today's highest fine-particle level of these cities in Winnipeg, at 9.6 µg/m³ PM2.5 (daily mean, model value). Smoke: little or none over Winnipeg (0.098).

• Winnipeg, MB
  PM2.5 9.6 µg/m³ · smoke 0.098 · dust 0.008
• Toronto, ON
  PM2.5 5.5 µg/m³ · smoke 0.041 · dust 0.002
• Vancouver, BC
  PM2.5 5.5 µg/m³ · smoke 0.033 · dust 0.007
• Halifax, NS
  PM2.5 5.3 µg/m³ · smoke 0.04 · dust 0.002
• Montreal, QC
  PM2.5 3.7 µg/m³ · smoke 0.025 · dust 0.002
• Calgary, AB
  PM2.5 3.7 µg/m³ · smoke 0.054 · dust 0.007
• Edmonton, AB
  PM2.5 3.6 µg/m³ · smoke 0.042 · dust 0.009
• Ottawa, ON
  PM2.5 2.8 µg/m³ · smoke 0.019 · dust 0.002
• Quebec City, QC
  PM2.5 2.8 µg/m³ · smoke 0.022 · dust 0.003

Bar length: today's mean PM2.5 against 50 µg/m³ (WHO interim target 3; the WHO 24-hour guideline is 15). Model values, not monitor readings.

Copernicus CAMS global forecast run of Oct 8, 8:00 p.m. EDT, shown as computed. "Smoke" is the fire-smoke aerosol optical depth at 550 nm (organic matter plus black carbon), the day's maximum: below 0.1 is clean air, 0.1 to 0.5 a smoke haze, above 1 thick smoke. "Dust" is the dust optical depth on the same scale. Smoke and fine particles make allergy and asthma symptoms worse on top of pollen. For official readings see the Air Quality Health Index (Environment and Climate Change Canada); for smoke forecasts see FireSmoke Canada.

The smoke drifts on the forecast wind on every SkyPollen map: open the map, then move it to North or South America and keep "Smoke" ticked in the layer menu.

When pollen and smoke are in the air in Canada

• Trees (birch, maple, poplar, alder)
  Mar – May: March to May; alder and poplar first, birch and oak later
• Grass
  May – Jul: late May to July
• Ragweed
  Aug – Sep: mid-August to the first frost, mostly southern Ontario and Quebec
• Wildfire smoke
  May – Sep: May to September, worst in July and August

Axis: January to December. The usual pattern; local timing shifts with latitude and weather.

Spring is tree pollen, early summer is grass, and late summer is ragweed, which grows mainly in southern Ontario and Quebec and is rare west of Manitoba. Wildfire smoke can travel thousands of kilometres: in June 2023 smoke from fires in Quebec and Ontario gave Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal some of the worst air quality in their records.

What is coming

A pollen map for Canadian cities, with pollen drifting from its sources on the forecast wind like our Australian maps, will come only once a pollen source we may publish covers Canada. Until then no pollen level is shown.

Elsewhere in the Americas: USA · Argentina · Uruguay · Chile