Smoke primarily from fires in southern California invaded northern Utah yesterday resulting in hazardous air quality for the Salt Lake Valley.
Modis imagery from yesterday afternoon showed a corridor of smoke extending from multiple fires in the mountains around the Los Angeles Basin, across the Las Vegas area, and through western Utah to northern Utah.
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| Source: https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/ |
PM2.5 at our mountain meteorology lab on the University of Utah campus crested at 120 ug/m3, at the upper end of what is considered to be unhealthy levels.
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| Source: https://mesowest.utah.edu |
Thankfully, those values have dropped into the single digits this morning, so all you notice as you inhale might be the lake stink, which I noticed in the avenues as I rode to work.
Breath easy for now because we're in a gap between the smoke from SoCal and smoke from OreIda (Oregon and Idaho). The latest HRRR smoke forecast has smoke from the latter moving into the area later this morning and afternoon. The forecast valid 2100 UTC (3 PM MDT) this afternoon shows near-surface concentrations in the Salt Lake City area near 60 ug/m3, not as high as yesterday's peak, but still at unheathy levels.
By 0000 UTC (6 PM MDT), concnetrations > 60 ug/m3 have spread over the entire Salt Lake Valley and extend in a narrow region into southwest Wyoming.
There are areas, however, where concentrations are > 100 ug/m3, so this has the potential to be another bad round of unhealthy air quality depending on your location and how this plays out. Exercise this morning if you can.
Where does one go to find those smoke forecasts pictured above?
ReplyDeletehttps://rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrr/HRRRsmoke/
DeleteWhy do you think the smoke was over predicted today? Yesterday was insane!
ReplyDeleteI suspect the smoke emissions were poorly handled. Those are still done fairly crudely and the rain with this system might have not been well accounted for.
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