BlueSky Forecast Verification

Each day we present verification maps and statistics for yesterday's smoke forecast, or for the user-selected date from our archive. On this page you will find:

  1. Map: centred on Western Canada showing how well our smoke forecast did at observation stations for different windows in time and space, currently for BC and AB;
  2. Statistics: mean absolute error (MAE) and root-mean-squared error (RMSE), hit rate, accuracy, and false alarm rate of our smoke forecast;
  3. Individual traces: station PM2.5 observations along with smoke forecasts interpolated to each station.
A full description of these products along with archive information can be found on our Methodology page.

Verification valid for:

Verification Map

Map showing the absolute difference between PM2.5 forecasts and observations at stations throughout BC and AB.
Use the sliders to vary the time and spatial windows around the observation point.

Time window (±hours):    

Spatial window (±km):     


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Verification Statistics

We calculate multiple smoke forecast statistics for all stations, all BC stations, all AB stations, then BC and AB are further divided into zones. These statistics include:

  • Mean absolute error (MAE) and root-mean-squared error (RMSE), lower value is better for both;
  • Accuracy (higher better), hit rate (higher better), and false alarm rate (lower better).

All Stations

BC Stations

AB Stations


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Individual Station Traces

Below are plots of traces for the PM2.5 observations and BlueSky model forecasts for each station in BC and AB.

BC Stations


AB Stations


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