By: Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District (NSAQMD)
September 3, 2010 - Wow, it happended again. Yesterday, September 2, 2010 was our fifth high ozone day of the year. To my knowledge (having done this for 24 years) we have never gone into September with so few high ozone days on the books. A high ozone day is a day that exceeds the National Ambient Air Quality Standard. Yesterday we were in the midrange of the Unhealthy for Sensitive Individuals range. Fortunately, our highest values occurred during the night when most of the population was indoors and at rest. However, there could be enough carryover of ozone from the previous night that even during the early daylight hours we might still see Unhealthy levels of ozone. Please take that into account if you plan on doing any early morning outdoor exercise.
Sensitive Groups (those most at risk from exposure to ground level ozone) are typically comprised of individuals who may be elderly, children, asthmatics, adults with pre-existing heart and lung disease, pregnant women and people who are exercising outdoors. Exposure to unhealthful ozone concentrations can result in eye and throat irritation, headaches, nausea, shortness of breath, congestion, coughing, impaired lung function and chest pain. Sensitive individuals are advised to avoid prolonged or heavy outdoor exertion especially during the late afternoon and evening.
Here is your weekend ozone forecast:
Friday's ozone is expected to be in the midrange of Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups range as temperatures remain high and a southwest wind prevails. However, as temperatures moderate, both Saturday and Sunday will be a little better, with ozone levels probably peaking at the high end of moderate.
Extended Forecast:
Next week is looking pretty good. I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that today (or maybe tomorrow) will be the last day that we will see high ozone values in 2010. I call that hoping for the best. However, if need be, I will issue additional advisories should the weather pattern change and September turn into a "bad" ozone month. That would be highly unusual. I suspect the next advisory you see from me will probably be for smoke, because September and October in California usually see at least a couple of big fires.
If you are interested in doing your part to minimize air pollution on high ozone days, feel free to minimize your use of any and all internal combustion engines, especially those burning gasoline. As of 2005, the Department of Motor Vehicles reports the existence of over 30 million registered vehicles in the State of California. Every one of those cars makes its own little contribution to California's air pollution problem.
There are currently approximately 38 million residents in California. To put it another way: 1 out of 8 U.S. citizens live in California. Additionally, we have the perfect topography and weather to create pollution trapping inversion layers. Why do we have an air pollution problem? I think I just answered that question.
