Smoke has settled in the Salt Lake Valley from wildfires burning in Northern California, Oregon and Washington and it could be a few days before it leaves.
“It looks like it’s going to pick up quite a bit, especially tonight, and be pretty dense through the day [Tuesday],” explained Jon Wilson, meteorologist for the National Weather Service’s Salt Lake City office.
The air will likely be unhealthy for sensitive groups for the next three days in Salt Lake County, according to the Utah Division of Air Quality.
Predicting when that smoke could clear out is tricky, Wilson said. But he expects that the air on Wednesday and Thursday is “probably going to stay relatively hazy,” although not quite as dense as the air on Tuesday.
And unlike winter inversions that trap pollution on the valley floor, wildfire smoke is “equally dispersive” across the region. That means Utahns can’t simply head up to the mountains to escape it.
Salt Lakers trying to decide whether or not to hit the trails or exercise outside can look for a few signs, said Bryce Bird, director of the Utah Division of Air Quality.
“When you can see the smoke but you can’t smell it,” Bird said, “usually it’s in that yellow [moderate] range on the air quality index.”
When you can smell the smoke and start to feel irritation in your lungs, “that’s usually when we’re up in the higher levels where you’d want to start taking some precautions,” Bird said.
The precautions for summertime ozone pollution and wildfire smoke-driven PM 2.5 are the same: avoid exertion or exercise outside, especially in the afternoon when ozone levels are the highest.
“If you’re going to exercise, do it in the early morning or late evening,” Bird said, “because the ozone values go down when the sunlight is not as intense and forming that pollutant in the atmosphere.”
Each day the Utah Division of Air Quality updates air quality conditions hourly. Utahns can check conditions here.