Boulder is a beautiful place. And the factory tour is a really nice experience.
Boulder is indeed a beautiful place. My wife and I will be visiting for a couple of weeks following the Labor Day holiday. Mostly with a fair amount of time in RMNP, and a brief visit to Manitou Springs. A PSA tour isnāt in the cards. Hopefully the wildfires settle down and the smoke isnāt too bad in September. Here, Central Wisconsin, the air quality index has fluctuated from hazardous to very unhealthy. We had a brief respite Friday afternoon, but returned to unhealthy Saturday morning. Thus my outdoor activities are severely limited. This Sunday morning our AQI is 267. Quoting a famous Forum member, Baaaah!
Better room than mine for sure. I do have Stealth cables and cords though. PSA has to tame the Dragon.
Oh, wait, cables may not matter anymore, sayeth the Discipleās of the Simple Path. 
Our AQI in the northern Chicago suburbs reached over 500 Friday and it was still over half that on Saturday. I have several relatives near Madison and they too are suffering now.
Yup, saw my daughter off Thursday and the AQI in Logan Square and OāHare was unbelievable. My wife was in Madison for rowing and was able to squeeze in a 6:00 AM sculling session on Lake Mendota. Thereafter Madisonās AQI spiked, and continues to increase. Here Sunday session was cancelled due to AQI so sheās currently on here way to Central Wisconsin. I chase music, she chases calm waters. The AQI on our lake is so bad I can barely make out the trees on the opposite shore, just hinting at a silhouette at a distance of a quarter mile.
My wife and I spent the weekend near Starved Rock and the smoke was hardly noticeable. Hiking was only affected by the heat. My daughter, who lives near Oāhare, did not go outside all weekend.
I grew up about 70 miles northwest of Madison, without air conditioning. I couldnāt cope without it today.
Matthiesson is a fine hike as well, both best following a recent rain. Glad to learn the smoke is not an impediment in the Utica area.
Generationally speaking, air conditioning wasnāt as common in our formative years as it is today. Added it at our summer home just prior to the Covid-19 outbreak. One of my better moves. I had no idea I would be using it to mitigate the effects of wildfire smoke. Central Wisconsin summers typically offered evening relief with slight breezes, light rains, and followed by cool air. Things here have changed recently with global warming, storms are more intense, wildfires threaten locally, and summer smoke hazards are pervasive. I had planned on heading up to Bayfield the first week of August, doubtful that will happen.
Yeah, our climate has change, no denying that (pun intended). Matthiesson was nice too, lots of river bathers.
A few years back Northern California had several big fires, as a result we experienced weeks of bad AQI. One day the sky was entirely black during noon time. We wore N95 masks for weeks.
I remember I was crazy enough to play golf wearing mask, and was quite surprised the golf course was full with players. Some didnāt even wear masks in 200 plus AQI. Golfers are nuts like audiophiles. It was not fun playing golf wearing mask in orange sky, and afterward my eyes were burning but lungs were okay. I decided not to do that again.
These huge fire storms seldom happened in early 90s. I cannot imaging what global warming will do 10 years from now. But some still think it is harmless.
A few days ago the morning light was an intense orange. It was creepy. Choking, stinging smoke just hung in the air for days. So no walking in South Mountain Reservation, although today seems better.
Creepy is the perfect descriptor.
I like to say climate change! As the earthās past history can acknowledge.
Nothing in this life goes without some form of changeā¦oneway or another!
The last two years, fires in Canada had so many of our days be like that. There is a chart online that tells you what the air quality is. Zero is good, 400 is the top of the worst scale. Our ratings sometimes get into the 1600 range, with 400 being really, really bad. I was thinking anything that could burn in Canada will be burned off soon. No yet.
Canada is 25x larger than California and 40% of it is forested.
Itās been burning all summer for at least four years. I canāt imagine how hard it must be for them to deal with it.
Exactly. Besides there being so much forest their population is around 41 million just a couple more than California, for example. These smoke conditions could be the new normal ā I hope not but who the heck knows?
Or it is ground zero for the next surprise.
There is no access to the Canadian wiildfires as it is all isolated forest. Having pulped in Northern Wisconsin, (specifically the Peshtigo Fire region) in the summer of 1974 I get it. Fire is serious business, and not easily extinguished. Canāt be done from oneās iPad.
Specifically how is the AQI measured at each of the indicated locations. Iām guessing it is an AI algorithm estimate at best. I doubt there are AQI monitoring stations at each location.