Today's air quality at the plaza in plain language — and what usually moves it when it's bad.
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Today's air at the plaza, in plain language. Most days at 7,000 feet the answer is good — the days it isn't, the reason is usually smoke.
Fair Fine for being outside, including exercise, for almost everyone.
| Day | Air quality |
|---|---|
| Fri 10 Jul | Moderate |
| Sat 11 Jul | Moderate |
| Sun 12 Jul | Moderate |
| Mon 13 Jul | Moderate |
Wildfire smoke — sometimes from fires hundreds of miles away — is the main thing that takes Taos's air from good to bad, mostly late spring through summer. The Is Something Burning? page on this site shows what is actually burning nearby, including prescribed burns.
Town sits near 7,000 feet; Taos Ski Valley sits above 9,200 and often runs twenty degrees colder — it can be snowing hard up there while town is sunny. This reading is for the town plaza; conditions up NM 150 can differ.
April and May bring hard, dry southwest winds across the sagebrush plateau. Blowing dust can nudge particulate readings up even with nothing burning anywhere.
Updated . These are modelled estimates for the area around Taos Plaza, not readings from a street monitor — air right beside a busy road can be worse than the area-wide picture. Official forecast: airnow.gov. Air quality data by Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0), based on Copernicus CAMS.