This article out of Caldwell County’s News-Topic newspaper explains how the county has decided to fly color coded flags to indicate ozone levels for the day (green, yellow, orange, red, purple). My first thought was that while an effort like this is not very useful, it probably won?t be harmful, so long as the information being conveyed is accurate. Then I read the following sentence.

“Monday kicked off the ozone alert season. Red flags were flown at eight locations on major roads all across the county.”

The problem is that there is no conceivable way that yesterday was a code red day anywhere in North Carolina–or probably anywhere on the eastern seaboard. Code red is the next to the worst level possible. It is experienced on only very hot and humid days and even then it is quite rare. Cities like Charlotte or Raleigh might experience 2 or 3 such days a year. Cool rainy days like yesterday are almost always a code green day–aka, healthy air–and while the data is not yet available I would bet anything that Monday (May 3) was a code green day in Caldwell County.

As Will Rogers said “The problem isn’t what
we don’t know, it’s what we think we know that just ain’t so.”