Recent Posts

Satellite imagery with smoke visible across the eastern U.S.

Rapid Reaction: Smoky Skies Create Unhealthy Air Quality

Our summer started not with sun but smoke last week, which yielded the most widespread hazardous air quality episode seen in many years across the...
Smoke analysis for the southeastern U.S. on 4/20/23.

Smoke Drives April Air Quality Woes

We usually experience good air quality conditions throughout the spring in North Carolina, often due to those April showers that bring May flowers! However, it...
Ozone formation

Springing into the 2023 Ozone Season

March heralds the start of not only meteorological spring – even if it may be colder than February was! –  but also the official start...
A screenshot of the Air Quality Portal dashboard containing air quality and weather forecasts

Air Quality Updates: What to Watch for in 2022

That feeling of spring in the air will soon be joined by powdery puffs of pollen, some sniffs of smoke, and potentially even occasional unhealthy...
This graphic depicts what a cross-section of a surface temperature inversion looks like. There is a sunshine in the sky, some little houses to indicate smoke from residential wood burning, and mountains to depict pollution being trapped in a valley thanks to the warm air aloft.

Winter Air Quality

Have you noticed how fine particulate readings in the morning are often higher than the afternoon during the winter months? This is often due to...
Diagram of a BAM air quality monitor.

Air Quality Monitoring

Earlier this month we discussed the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), but how do we measure air quality to ensure our air is within...
PM2.5 concentrations, winds, and NOAA OSPO’s smoke analysis at 3 pm on July 21, 2021.

AIR Tool Offers Air Quality and Weather Data, in Detail

This post originally appeared on the State Climate Office’s Climate Blog in August 2021 coinciding with the public launch of the Ambient Information Reporter. The State Climate Office...
A satellite image of North Carolina is shown. There are pins on the map to show the locations of monitoring sites across the state.

Air Quality Monitoring

A Statewide Effort Last month we discussed the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), but how do we measure air quality to ensure our air...

National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS)

In an earlier post, we discussed the Air Quality Index and how it measures the state of the air. We mentioned that the breakpoints for...