U.S. Air Quality

Happy V(og)-Day at the Smog Blog

Since Ray posted his happy cloud from the Caribbean for Valentine's Day, I thought I'd post an image from another popular romantic place: Hawaii. Over the past few months, Hawaii has been experiencing increased emissions of SO2 from Mount Kilauea, creating recurring layers of volcanic smog, or vog. Here is the MODIS image from today, where I believe that is a plume of light vog off the west coast of the Big Island of Hawai'i. According to AIRNow, PM2.5 levels were moderate (code yellow) in Kona and Pahala.

This has often been visible in the satellite images but, having visited Hawaii this week, I better understand what I am seeing. While in Hawaii, I got to visit the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. They had many signs up warning visitors of dangers of SO2 (left). As we drove through the park to the coast, the vog was visible and very irritating to the lungs and eyes. In the right photo, the vog can be seen over lava flows from the 1970s and 1980s. And at the visitor's center, I though that this part of the Park Service had a very tough job!