Dirty air, seen trapped here by a weather phenomenon known as a temperature inversion.
SALT LAKE CITY — Utah is known for its winter inversions, but there are different things that cause them.
On Monday, a number of monitoring stations across the Salt Lake Valley showed air quality to be red or unhealthy. The good news is the inversion will likely be blown out of the valley midweek by an approaching storm.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the air quality index, or AQI, measures air pollution levels on a scale from 0 to 500.
KSL Air Quality Network shows monitoring stations in across the Wasatch Front on Monday. “Red” denotes unhealthy air quality. Screen shot via https://www.ksl.com/weather/airQuality
According to the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, the state’s inversions are caused by combining the topography, or the natural and artificial features of an area, weather patterns in the region, and emissions.
Normally, air temperatures rise with the altitude, but in winter this pattern can “invert,” meaning cooler air is trapped in valleys beneath a lid of warmer, calm air.
Under this lid, pollutants mix with chemicals from emissions containing fine particulates such as PM2.5. These liquid droplets and solid particles are found in the air and are so small they’re a fraction as wide as a strand of hair. But that makes them easy to inhale and enter your lungs.
PM2.5 has been linked to aggravated asthma, decreased lung function, and increased respiratory symptoms, such as coughing or difficulty breathing.
The majority of PM2.5 is formed through atmospheric reactions of chemicals such as ammonia, nitrogen oxide, and volatile organic compounds, emitted from sources including industrial processes and vehicle exhaust, according to DEQ.
But much like advice to protect yourself from COVID-19, if you wear the right mask, it’ll help your lungs stay away from bad inversion effects. N95 and KN95 masks can filter out 95% of airborne particles larger than 0.3 microns.
The biggest impact one individual can make in the inversion is to limit the air pollution you generate:
KSL Meteorologist Kristen Van Dyke predicts air quality in Utah will improve starting Thursday with rain switching to snow on Christmas Eve. So put your mask on, and stay out of the gunk until then.
