U.S. Air Quality

Scattered haze, but overall pretty nice

The major storms that hit the midwest yesterday passed over the northeast and midAtlantic today, leaving clear air in their wake. AIRNow is undergoing maintenance this weekend, so their data was not available. However, looking at the U.S. MODIS image (top, UW SSEC), it does appear that some light haze is lingering in the southeast. There may also be some smoke remnants in west Texas, but it is hard to tell. Southern and central California also seem to have a little light haze. All these show up in the MODIS aerosol optical depth data as well (bottom, from NOAA NESDIS).

And on a personal note, I will be moving this summer for a three year assignment to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I have always been interested in air quality beyond the U.S., so my future posts will cover global issues in my new role as 'foreign correspondent' for the Smog Blog. The daily U.S. posts will continue with the team, and I will supplement them with images and input from Asia and beyond. For that, I will need to find and advocate for better near realtime images and data for areas outside the U.S. and Europe. One of my first tasks will be to convince NASA MODIS Rapid Response to provide a subset for Malaysia!