Poor air quality expected to return to Central Valley
After a brief reprieve in recent days, more smoke-filled skies are on the horizon.
Courtesy of a highpressure system and continued wildfires in all directions -- including two new fires in northern California -- smoke will build up throughout the Central Valley into the weekend and early next week, according to John Klassen, the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District’s director of air quality science and planning.
“Thanks to the brief reprieve we had over the weekend and last week, smoke was able to disperse and wind pushed that smoke to the east towards Nevada,” Klassen said. “Things are changing, temperatures are turning up and now smoke is coming closer to the valley floor instead of to the east.”
Jamie Holt, the district’s chief communications officer, explained that the high pressure system over the valley acts as a lid, leaving much of the smoke unable to escape.
“Like a jar that you keep adding more feathers to, the feathers would get more and more dense and pollution will have nowhere to go,” Holt said.
Dan Harty, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Hanford, said that the highpressure system is currently over most of the western United States and is expected to last through the weekend. Harty explained that thanks to a phenomenon known as “inversion,” cool overnight temperatures cause smoke to drift over the valley and settle on the surface. Once settled, the smoke will need another weather system to clear the air.
“We’re pretty much locked into the high pressure right now and it’s going to pretty well remain stationary thorough the West,” Harty said. “There might be some weakening this weekend as a system passes over the Pacific Northwest.”
For eastern Kern County, similar air quality conditions are expected, according to Glen Stephens, an air quality control officer with the Eastern Kern Air Pollution Control District.
“Unfortunately, because of the way the winds are blowing from the valley into the east, we will experience the same poor air quality,” Stephens said.
Stephens said his district put out an air quality alert for the month of September and will be making another one in the coming days. On Tuesday, the San Joaquin Valley air district reissued a health caution.
Klassen said that looking at air quality records, the San Joaquin Valley district had never seen this much of a high concentration of poor air quality days in a year before.
“This is the worst air quality wildfire period we’ve had,” Klassen said. Stephens said this was the case for the eastern Kern district as well.
Holt reminded the public that the best way to handle poor air quality days are to stay inside. She said for individuals who have to work outside, check with OSHA’S regulations that track whether people can work outside under poor air quality conditions.
The San Joaquin Valley district said conditions are expected to be similar throughout the valley with no notable differences in air quality. However, Holt said the poor air conditions are currently most notable around the valley’s foothills and near the Clovis area.