Elevated ozone alert
Somebody’s got too much time on their hands and not enough logic in their press releases at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. We’ve been hoping to get a thunderstorm while traveling, so we’ve been paying attention to the weather forecasts in areas we’ll be traveling in.1 This morning there was an air quality advisory in some of the counties in Michigan we’ll be visiting.
Besides being in all-caps, which I guess is understandable2 I don’t think they’re taking their own alert very seriously.
Pollutants are expected to be in the unhealthy for sensitive groups range… people and businesses are urged to… [engage in positive activities such as] biking to work.
…
It is recommended that active children and adults—and persons with respiratory diseases such as asthma—limit prolonged outdoor exertion.
The counties listed in the advisory are mostly very rural areas. Any biking to work is going to be “prolonged outdoor exertion”. And what does it mean that active children and adults limit their prolonged outdoor exertion, and also inactive persons with respiratory diseases limit their prolonged outdoor exertion, but any other inactive persons with other diseases, go ahead, exert yourselves on this day of expected poor air quality?
I get the feeling that whoever put this alert together doesn’t take it seriously.
I’d even be willing to bet that they either did or did not bike to work.
In response to 2012 in photos: For photos and perhaps other quick notes sent from my mobile device or written on the fly during 2012.
There are no thunderstorms in San Diego. The weather forecasts do sometimes claim a chance of thunderstorms, but I think by “thunderstorm” they just mean heavy rain. We never get lightning, and so never get thunder. Or maybe it only happens inland or in the mountains.
↑No, they don’t still use teletype machines for alerts, it’s just that the National Weather Service provides these alerts to other countries, and some of those countries can’t afford lower-case letters.
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- National Weather Service - NWS Seattle
- Seattle National Weather Service Internet Home page. The starting point for official government weather forecasts, warnings, meteorological products for forecasting the weather, and information about meteorology across the Pacific Northwest.
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