January 16, 2013
Air Quality Action Day in Utah; Dust over western Mexico; DISCOVER-AQ 2014 first flight
Today's Airnow animation shows that along the Great Lakes and the west coast Moderate to Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups (Code Yellow and Orange) AQI levels were reported. Today was an Air Quality Action Day in Utah. Forecasts indicate that PM2.5 concentrations will reach Code Red (Unhealthy) levels. Surface measurements ranged between 11-55 ug/m3 throughout the state of Utah, as shown below in the top right image (courtesy of airnowtech.org).
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Dust continues to be visible off the west coast of Mexico in MODIS Aqua retrievals, as shown in the RGB and AOD images below.
Today was the flight of the second installment of DISCOVER-AQ. During the next 6 weeks, two NASA aircraft will be flying over the San Joaquin Valley CA, between Bakersfield and Fresno, to help scientists better understand how to measure and forecast air quality globally from space. This link is to a video posted by Tim Berkoff. The NASA's P3 aircraft can be seen flying by Porterville, where UMBC and Pennstate will be carrying out lidar and air quality measurements.
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