West Helena, Arkansas Air Quality

An Air Quality Alert is issued by the National Weather Service on behalf of a state or local agency when pollution is expected to reach a level that harms health. An Air Stagnation Advisory means the air will not move enough to clear what is already in it.

• Air Quality Alert Air Quality Alert issued September 21 at 4:48PM CDT by NWS Memphis TNCrittenden; DeSoto; Shelby
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  AQAMEG The Shelby County Health Department has issued a Code Orange Ozone Health Advisory effective for Shelby County Tennessee, Crittenden County Arkansas, and DeSoto County Mississippi, including the city of Memphis that will remain in effect until sunset. This ozone health advisory is due to monitored ozone values that are unhealthy for sensitive groups. These values have exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency's federal safe health standard. The Shelby County Health Department recommends that sensitive groups which include active children and adults, and people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, limit prolonged outdoor exertion. Please continue to check the latest air quality forecasts and updates until monitored values return to safe levels. For more information go to www.airnow.gov.

All Arkansas warnings

Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups

Reporting area

Hernando, MS, 42 miles away

Reported by

Mississippi DEQ

Area index

108 · Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups

Measured, not modeled. AirNow observations are preliminary until the operating agency certifies them, which happens months later.

Mississippi DEQ's own forecast for Hernando, written by a forecaster rather than read off a model.

NOAA’s National Air Quality Forecast Capability, bias-corrected against monitors, for this town’s own coordinate. The worst hour ahead is an index of 63, Moderate, around Wed, 11:00 PM CDT, from the run issued Mon, 7:00 AM CDT. This is a model, not a measurement.

Fine particles in micrograms per cubic meter, ozone in parts per billion as an 8-hour average. The index for each hour is EPA’s: the ozone figure is already the 8-hour average the ozone index is defined on, and the particle figure is run through EPA’s NowCast, which is how an hourly PM2.5 concentration becomes an index.

NOAA’s Hazard Mapping System analysts drew medium smoke over West Helena in satellite imagery today (Mon, 12:00 PM CDT to Mon, 3:00 PM CDT). That is smoke seen from above; it is not always smoke at ground level.

NOAA’s model forecasts near-surface smoke peaking at 2.9 µg/m³ around Mon, 12:00 AM CDT.

Smoke on the radar over West Helena

Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups

Members of sensitive groups may experience health effects. The general public is less likely to be affected.

Who is affected

People with asthma or other lung disease, people with heart disease, children, older adults, and anyone active outdoors.

What to do

Sensitive groups should make outdoor activity shorter or easier, and take more breaks. Watch for coughing or shortness of breath.

Index range

101 to 150

Category descriptions are the Environmental Protection Agency’s own.

What these numbers are. An index beside a monitor’s name is a measurement, published hourly by AirNow and preliminary until the operating agency certifies it. A category for today or tomorrow is a state or local agency forecaster’s own forecast for a reporting area. An hourly index is NOAA’s air quality model on a five-kilometer grid, not a reading from any instrument. Where a town has no monitor within reach, only the model figures appear, and the page says so.

The nearest towns with a page of their own, closest first.

• Helena, AR3 miles
• Helena-West Helena, AR3 miles
• Friars Point, MS12 miles
• Marvell, AR15 miles
• Marianna, AR17 miles
• North Tunica, MS18 miles
• Jonestown, MS19 miles
• Clarksdale, MS25 miles

Observations and daily forecasts from AirNow, the US Environmental Protection Agency’s program with NOAA, the National Park Service, NASA, tribal, state and local agencies. Hourly forecasts from NOAA’s National Air Quality Forecast Capability. Smoke analysis from NOAA’s Hazard Mapping System. Alerts from the National Weather Service. Index categories and breakpoints are EPA’s, as revised in 2024.