March 12, 2013
Cold front brings rain and improved AQ to Eastern U.S.
The first image below, courtesy, National Weather Service, shows the 12 hour national forecast for the day. The cold front moving across the eastern U.S. will bring moderate to heavy rain to much of the East Coast today, which should improve air quality in the region. The next image, courtesy EPA AIRNOW, shows the AQI values for the country today. The eastern portion of the country has not been forecasted to have any major AQI concerns.
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The first image below, courtesy NOAA HMS, shows the fire locations across the United States. The red dots correspond to active fires, and the grey areas are plumes. There are small plumes and concentration of fires in the Southeast region. Texas has some additional wildfires at this time. The second image below, courtesy GASP East (Goes EAST), shows the derived AOD animation for the country today. You can see that most of these raised values correspond to more optically thick areas, which correspond to the fires and smoke debris throughout the nation. You can see raised values off the western coast of the Southeast region and the Gulf of Mexico that may be due to the concentration of fires in the region. The raised AOD in Texas is most likely due to dust blowing in the area as well as the small fires.
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