Try to hold your breath on the way home this afternoon

By adamg on Wed, 09/01/2010 - 9:35am

The National Weather Service has declared an air quality alert for this afternoon, because the Boston area could see unhealthy levels of ozone as all that stagnant air just sits there, melting us with its slurpy tendrils of humidity. At least, until Earl arrives and takes out the trash, bwa-ha-ha.

Hmm, time to pour some ice cubes on my head ...

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Comments

Gack.

By Kaz on Wed, 09/01/2010 - 10:06am.

I was driving home yesterday and being forced down to Mass Ave because some Cambridge cop had blocked off the eastbound Mem Drive ramp onto the BU Bridge.

You could almost taste the crappy air quality coming from all of the idling cars on Beacon and Comm Ave through BU.

Another 2 days of this is going to suck.

AN AIR QUALITY ACTION DAY

By anon on Wed, 09/01/2010 - 10:20am.

AN AIR QUALITY ACTION DAY MEANS THAT GROUND LEVEL OZONE
CONCENTRATIONS WITHIN THE REGION MAY APPROACH OR EXCEED UNHEALTHY
STANDARDS. FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION...PLEASE VISIT THE
MASSACHUSETTS DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION WEBSITE AT...

HTTP://WWW.PUBLIC.DEP.STATE.MA.US/MASSAIR
/ALL LOWERCASE LETTERS/...OR CALL 1-800-882-1497.

Can everyone call that number so that they start giving us pointers to EXISTING web sites?

Or maybe they'll just tell us in the alert WTF we are supposed to do to deal with these dangerous conditions.

When does the French Toast

By anon on Wed, 09/01/2010 - 10:24am.

alert start for Earl?

Heat Banquet

By SwirlyGrrl on Wed, 09/01/2010 - 10:28am.

The hot air and pollution are being pushed up the seaboard by Hurricane Earl. We get NYC's leftovers anyway, and they go through some chemical changes overnight as they cross the salty ocean and create those epic high levels of Ozone found on Cape Cod and Islands.

My work is with air pollution, so I have developed a sense of how bad the particulate level is by looking at the haze (a great party/reception trick for conferences). Inversions also have local effects - like, smelling that cigarette that somebody was smoking as they walked by a couple minutes ago, or stale coffee, or bad perfume clouds. The air is simply not moving much - not at ground level, not at above ground level. Machete please!

Cake has a song for this occasion

By M on Wed, 09/01/2010 - 12:25pm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHb5W2PNyIg

Car after bus after car after truck...