June 3, 2012
Weekend wrap-up: Moderate to unhealthy ozone levels in Southwestern US;
This weekend, ozone levels reached code orange in Southwestern US from Southern California to New Mexico, most likely due to the combination of high temperatures and the many fires burning in Sonora/Chihuahua, Mexico and the Baldy-Whitewater fire in New Mexico. Today's HMS fire product showed an extensive area covered by smoke from fires in Canada and also from the fires in the Southwest, previously mentioned.
On the left you can see the peak of ozone levels from yesterday and on the right side the AQI animation from today, in which ozone, instead of PM2.5, was again the biggest contributor of pollution.
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In Baltimore this week, we observed smoke from a few fires and the air quality in the Mid-Atlantic region reached moderate levels in terms of ozone on Thursday (below, left). On Friday, in the East Coast, we were swept by severe thunderstorms which not only cleaned the air with heavy rain, but also left behind lots of destruction, unfortunately. You can read some reports on the storm here. In the animated GASP product you can clearly see the clouds moving across Maryland and other states in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast that were also affected.
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