HAQES_NA_PM25_TOT_COUNTY: 3-Hourly PM2.5 Forecasts for U.S. Counties

North American county-level ensemble mean forecasts of surface total PM2.5 concentration, updated every three hours. The Hazardous Air Quality Ensemble System (HAQES) combines regional and global models from NASA, NOAA, and the Naval Research Laboratory to predict events like wildfires and dust storms. This prototype was developed by the George Mason University Air Quality Laboratory for the NASA Health Air Quality Applied Science Team.

Use Cases

• Forecasting acute air pollution events based on the ensemble model outputs for wildfires and dust storms.
• Analyzing spatiotemporal PM2.5 patterns based on the 3-hourly, county-level resolution.
• Validating other air quality models based on the multi-agency ensemble forecast system.
• Assessing population exposure to particulate matter based on the county-level geographic scale.

Strengths

• Data is produced by an ensemble system incorporating models from NASA, NOAA, and the Naval Research Laboratory.
• Provides 3-hourly temporal resolution for near-real-time monitoring.
• Spatial coverage is focused on the continental United States (CONUS) at the county level.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to its focus on the continental United States.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) via the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC).

Collection Method

Real-time ensemble forecast combining outputs from multiple agency models (GEOS, NAAPS, GEFS, HRRR, NACC-CMAQ).

Time Range

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Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 01:44:09.480029; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Continental United States (CONUS) at the county level.