July 8, 2009
Air quality at the most “moderate” over the US and fires in California
Today’s PM2.5 map (top, left) shows, at the most, “moderate” air conditions over a significant part of the eastern US as well as California. The ozone levels (top, right) are recorded “unhealthy for sensitive groups” in Arkansas, Mississippi, Montana and Southern California.
According to the SSD fire team at NOAA and the HMS map (bottom, left), patches of residual light smoke are seen over Colorado and Nebraska. The National Interagency fire Center reports a new large fire in Colorado. Also, the SSD fire team shows a thin ribbon of likely sulfur dioxide stretching from central California northeastward across Lake Tahoe and Nevada. None of the above seems to be thick enough to be seen on the MODIS AQUA RGB image except for some smoke in Northern California (bottom, right). In addition, today’s MODIS AQUA AOD does not show particularly strong values over the US.
 |  |
 |  |