There was a significant, noticeable difference in air quality yesterday than there was in days given poor air quality ratings last year, and the reason for that was that the air pollution yesterday ? the drifting smoke from the eastern wildfires ? was entirely regionwide as opposed to a high reading registered at one discrete monitor in a collection of counties being used to classify the entire region as out of attainment.
Yesterday was initially rated Code Orange, but as the day progressed and the smoke thickened, Division of Air Quality officials raised it to Code Red. As the accompanying photos (from The News & Observer’s article) show, the smoke pollution was palpable:
That obvious palpability was a marked difference from previous days given the worrisome ratings:
The federal Environmental Protection Agency rates air quality according to how much ozone, formed by the combination of certain pollutants, sunlight, and heat, is measured by various monitors. Days rated as Code Orange or worse are considered potentially unhealthy for people with respiratory problems.
Even the days that triggered an ozone warning barely registered. On June 30 a single monitor in Fuquay-Varina climbed only to the .085 parts-per-million threshold set by the EPA. On April 19 a single monitor in Butner was triggered, and the following day it did so again, along with a monitor in western Johnston County.
The EPA says that if a single ozone monitor on a given day exceeds the .085 limit, then the entire region in which it sits is considered out of attainment. The Raleigh region encompasses 16 counties, from Person County to Northampton County on the Virginia border, down to Lee, Wilson, and Johnston counties.
