I was planning a week trip to Idaho starting tomorrow, 8-23. I’ve looked at a few webcams and the smoke looks pretty bad. KSUN taf calls for marginal VFR today, but current conditions show 5 miles visibility.

Does anyone have a first hand account?

I don't have an ID PIREP, but I did fly from Lake Tahoe to Denver yesterday and viz was limited the whole trip.

Also, I find METARS and TAFS are not good measures of smoke. Check out this tool on the Windy app:

From the home page, click the menu button, click "Air Quality", then select "PM2.5"



The resulting map should look like this:

It was down to 1/2 mile viz two days ago at my place, Pocatello area. Terrible, nothing I'd choose to fly in.

I was out yesterday in Eastern Idaho, according to asos the visibility was six miles. It was workable. Earlier in the week it was down to 1 1/2 miles. The winds are forecast to be lower this next week so that should help. If the winds stay tolerable, and depending on where you are you may be able to make the trip. Just checking the webcams now, some strips fair, some not so good. Sorry, not a very good answer to your question.

I'm currently looking out my office door in McCall. The smoke is better this morning than yesterday, but it's still not pleasant. I flew from Ogden up yesterday and was IFR in smoke up to 14,000. It's definitely varying from "workable" in the mountains, to unworkable. If you plan to "work it" with the smoke, I'd recommend being very experienced in the area you're working. Also check out all the TFR's in the area and be aware that there are a TON of us fire fighting aircraft moving around between fires and airports.

McCall is so busy with fire traffic and backcountry traffic we currently have a temporary tower. Check your NOTAMS!

So.....Is right now the best time to go take a fun flying vacation in Idaho? Not really. But if you go, please be careful.

I'm available on my cell if you have any questions
801 624 0302

Here's a map with a near surface smoke layer you can use

https://hwp-viz.gsd.esrl.noaa.gov/smoke/#

Here's a tutorial on how to use it

https://www.weather.gov/mfr/HRRR_smoke_tutorial

Great info Kodiak. Thanks for the PIREP and up to the minute info on McCall and the local area. Good websites as well. Please fly safe. You all do thankless and dangerous work. I'm postponing my annual trip out west until conditions improve or it gets too cold.

MW

Thanks to all for the great information. It would by my girlfriend’s first trip to Idaho, she’s not a fan of smoke anyway. I’m concerned about safety of getting in and out of various strips. I’ve got the Grizzly Creek Fire in western Colorado 3 miles from the house, in the mornings the smoke is settled in the valleys pretty heavily. I’m guessing that Idaho would be similar.
Probably not a great idea right now. At least I got up there for a couple days earlier in the month. I’m very comfortable in the mountains, but The unpredictable nature of smoke and the variability of visibility makes me think it’s not worth the risk.

There will be a better time.

Any time. And if you're ever in McCall just holler. If I'm here I'm happy to lend you wheels or help any way I can.

Thank you Kodak. Great info and link!

Ted

The visibility overlay on Foreflight is useful also. I personally find flying in smoke exhausting.

I should note, that a lot of the fire here currently is blowing in from elsewhere, and of course since this morning it has cleared out significantly. It's a gamble this time of year though. Next week we're expecting dry lightning and the show very well may get real busy again.

The thing about flying in smoke is....even with enough viz to be legal VFR, it still sucks! Unless you really have to get from point A to B, the view is so bad for me anyway it really takes a lot of the fun out of flying. Nonetheless, I'll see what it looks like tomorrow morning.....1/2 to 3/4 mile right now.

I just got back flying in Idaho. It was beautiful in the early part of the week with great conditions. The smoke started to fill in on Wednesday the 19th and progressively got worse. There was no reason to stay and could have even left a day early. There was better visibility further North and much worse in the Boise region. I would consider flying to Montana or Cavanaugh Bay if the smokes persist.


Josh

I was over there a couple days ago too.
(great running into you, Josh!)
Flew into Big Creek noon-ish wednesday, conditions were good.
Flew out thursday morning, it was quite smokey.
A couple fires (with TFR's) near McCall.
We departed west, smoke cleared off about when we crossed Hells Canyon.

We just flew from Glacier (KGPI) to Nampa. Vis was pretty good till around Grangeville area. 8500 and above at that location are pretty thick with smoke, though 6500 was OK. South from Grangeville gets worse and worse until the boise area, 6500 was about as high as I wanted to be to retain forward visibility.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's not good now for traveling in my opinion. We have been crop dusting when conditions allow. right now its about 2-3 miles visibility on the ground and about 500 ceiling AGL. This in the Heyburn/Burley area. There are currently 2 smoke lines converging at about Twin Falls and heading east.

It's quite bad and forecast to continue to be for at least a few more days.

Another resource for checking smoke is the good old aviation weather center at https://aviationweather.gov/. If you select "tools" from the menu bar, and then select "GFA" for graphic forecast analysis you get a map that has some great weather overlays and predictions for 14 hours into the future. If you select clg/vis from the map's menu, you get an indication of where it is VFR (no color), where it is IFR, where it is LIFR, and where it is MFVR. Here's the current state of ID, WA & OR:


If you go back to the map menu bar and select PCPN/WX, you get an indication of why areas are IFR, LIFR, MVFR or VFR. THis graphic shows the problem is smoke. You can use the slider bar to see how conditions are expected to change over the next 14 hours.


I find this a pretty good free tool. For more information on predicted WX conditions and winds, I use weatherspork, but that requires a paid subscription. Here are 3 screen shots from weather spork for a flight from Port Townsend, WA to SE Idaho