June 24, 2009
Unhealthy ozone levels in California; Smoke over Texas, Louisiana and Quebec, Canada
Today ozone levels (left) were still high in California, ranging from moderate to unhealthy (code red) and in the extensive corridor connecting the Great Lakes region in the Midwest to Texas the levels ranged from moderate to unhealthy to sensitive groups (code orange). The unhealthy levels were observed around Bakersfield and Palm Springs in the afternoon around 5pm PDT.
The cities with "Actions Days" for tomorrow can be viewed here and AIRNow map for today's PM2.5 levels is provided (right).
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SSD fire team at NOAA reported an extensive area of smoke over Quebec in Canada due to yesterday's fires in W Quebec and NE Ontario which seems to be getting mixed with SO2 from Sarychev Peak eruption. A report of smoke over Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana was also issued as a result of the still ongoing agricultural fires in the Southeast. According to the analysts the smoke was thin to moderate in consistency but it got mixed with haze/high humidity. The fires map is shown below on the left-hand side and in the right-hand side is the MODIS Terra AOD map showing slightly higher values over Texas and much higher values over Quebec.
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Finally, the MODIS images of the day confirming the aforementioned smoke areas: On the LHS is the Terra true color image over Texas and Louisiana showing a very thin smoke and on the RHS is part of the smoke observed over Quebec.
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