I remember last summer I checked air quality on Google maps and lots of areas were red. Is it really that bad usually? I know fires are common.
I remember last summer I checked air quality on Google maps and lots of areas were red. Is it really that bad usually? I know fires are common.
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Air quality can be really bad if there are a lot of wildfires. Lately the fire seasons have been pretty bad so it’s a problem.
Mostly only when there’s wildfires, and really they don’t have to even be close. Couple years ago there were huge fires in Canada but there was smoke from them in much of the US.
Other than that, watch out for occasional dust storms.
As others have pointed out, it depends on how much the West was on fire that year.
Mainly during wildfire season, when it can get apocalyptic-level bad in extreme cases. However, the general air quality has improved significantly compared to the past. Compare pictures of LA from past decades to today, and you’ll see what I mean.
This depends a lot on where you are. If you’re right along the Pacific, smoke is rarely, but certainly not never an issue. But if you live in an area that tends to trap air, or is directly east of areas that tend to burn, it can be a constant issue.
To add to what people are saying about wildfires, air quality is generally only bad when wind is blowing smoke your direction. It’s not like one specific area is bad all summer, it usually just lasts a few days, then the wind shifts it somewhere else. I can’t speak for the entire West, but in my experience there might be one or two episodes of ~3 days of smoke over the summer. I imagine places that are closer to longer wildfire seasons (like California) might have a different experience than I do (in Western Washington).
Of course some areas have poor air quality outside of wildfire smoke, but most of the West has good air quality in general.
Depends, in the pnw its great year round barring wildfires. Wildfires can make being outside a chore
The only air quality issues in summer are generally when the trees decide to shoot out pollen everywhere, or if there is wildfires nearby.
In Phoenix the winter is usually the worst for air quality because the shape of the Valley and the cool weather will create inversion layers that trap in the smog and chimney smoke.
It depends so much on wind. I’ve had fires fairly close to me that didn’t really cause any issues, but fires much farther away that caused horrible air quality (namely the Camp Fire).
I’d say like 95% of the time, the air quality is fine. But when there’s a fire and the wind brings it to you, it’s a terrible experience. It’s so hard to escape.
It varies from year to year. And I have to add that I’ve lived in the West for most of my 50 years and this is a relatively new problem.
The Great Salt Lake basin (SLC and metro areas north) can have some absolutely terrible air quality issues when there’s a thermal inversion.
It’s trending worse due to forest fires in the PNW. Last year the AQI was pretty good the whole summer but get enough forest fires and the AQI drops significantly.
Depends on if the state’s on fire or not. In 2020 it was so bad in Colorado that there were a few days where the street lights were on in the middle of the day because it was so dark from the smoke, and the fire was over 60 miles away.
When I was stationed near Spokane, WA during the early ’90s, the town and/or county regularly had poor air quality throughout the year:
Temperature inversions during the winter. You could drive downhill on I-90 into Spokane from the west, and see the inversion layer with clean air above and smoky air below. Many houses still used wood or oil heat, and there were regular rotating fireplace bans during the winter.
Particulate pollution during dry weather due to the high percentage of non-paved roads, and general dust in the air. After one bout of severe windstorms, there was so much fine dust driven through the air with force, that it got into houses, cars, etc. and you’d see a “poof” of dust if set anything down on a shelf or on your car seat.
Smoke from wildfires and/or intentional grass seed farm burns. There’s the infamous Firestorm ’91. I went back for a reunion in the July 2015 and there was a noticeable haze and smell the whole time from fires throughout much of the state.
Report: People in 16 Washington communities are twice as likely to die from human-caused air pollution; Spokane and Spokane Valley are listed as “overburdened” by air pollution, according to a new report from the Washington Department of Ecology. Notice the footage from 0:26 to 0:32 and 1:37 to 2:00, which is Spokane.
yes, here in Texas but not from fires. Its the trees and dust mites from the Sahara dust. The tree pollen from the junipers is absolute brutality.
I don’t know much about air quality, but Denver tends to have issues with ozone during the summer. The sun is intense, and Denver sits in a bowl of sorts (Rockies to the west, Palmer divide to the south, Cheyenne ridge to the north). Denver is also a more car centric city. These factors contribute to I guess an accumulation of ozone.
Maybe the dryness, West of the 100th meridian contributes to the air quality of the west?
Because of wildfires. West of the Rockies and North of the 4 corners, the summer is mostly dry the whole summer. Very easy for wildfires to start.
In places like AZ, NM, Utah, parts of NV and Colorado, July and August are the monsoon season with thunderstorms. But CA and the west coast are bone dry.
Depends on how bad the fires are. I’m in Eastern Washington; in late summer, it can get so bad that you don’t go outside. Or if you do go outside, you wear a facemask.
Generally, the air quality isn’t an issue though.
Weren’t there like, a record breaking amount of wildfires last year? That’s probably why the radar looked like that at the time.
Terrible in Phoenix a good chunk of the time
When there are no fires it’s beautiful. When Mother Nature or Stupid Humans do things that cause fires is when it gets bad. Depending how bad the fire(s) and where they are vs where you are, you may not even deal with it.
Even outside of fire season, air quality in the California Central Valley is terrible in summer.
It’s a huge valley with exactly one break in the mountains to elsewhere.
If there are wildfires or dust storms, yeah, the AQI can be crazy.