The area-wide air quality for Whitehorse right now — especially on wildfire-smoke days — in plain language, with Environment Canada's official health index.
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The area-wide air over Whitehorse right now, updated hourly. Most days it's clean — this page is for the summer smoke days, when a wildfire in the territory or a plume drifting up from BC and the North can turn the sky brown in hours.
Fair Fine for being outside, including exercise, for almost everyone.
| Day | Air quality |
|---|---|
| Thu 30 Jul | Fair |
| Fri 31 Jul | Fair |
| Sat 1 Aug | Fair |
| Sun 2 Aug | Fair |
Whitehorse's worst air almost always comes from wildfire smoke — from fires in the Yukon or drifting in from across the North and BC. The huge 2024 season smoked in much of the North, and the summers since have brought repeated smoke and evacuation alerts around the territory. On a smoky day: close windows, ease off hard outdoor exercise, and check on older neighbours, young kids, and anyone with heart or lung conditions.
This page shows the European air-quality index from a global atmosphere model (Copernicus CAMS) — a good area-wide estimate, not a street monitor. Canada's official health index is the AQHI (1 to 10+), published by Environment and Climate Change Canada with specific advice for Whitehorse. When the two disagree on a bad-air day, trust the AQHI — the link is at the bottom of this page.
Yukon has added air-quality monitors around Whitehorse, including south of downtown. On a smoke day, Yukon.ca's wildfire-smoke page carries those community sensor readings and a 48-hour smoke forecast showing where the smoke is likely to drift next — often more useful, street to street, than a single modelled number.
The pollen model behind this tool only covers Europe, so we don't show pollen figures for Whitehorse rather than show numbers we can't stand behind.
Updated . These are modelled estimates for the area around Whitehorse, not readings from a street monitor — air right beside a busy road can be worse than the area-wide picture. Official forecast: weather.gc.ca. Air quality data by Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0), based on Copernicus CAMS.