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"Overall, I believe we had a pretty decent summer."
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As summer comes to a muggy end, so does the ozone season, and Maryland’s statewide monitoring for ground-level ozone air pollution winds down until Spring 2006. The Maryland Department of the Environment manages a network of 16 ozone-monitoring sites across the state that measure ozone concentrations. The data from these monitors are used to determine how good or how poor our air quality is on any given day, from May 1, through September 30.
“It looks like Maryland had an average summer, as far as temperatures and precipitation,” said Michael Woodman, a meteorologist with MDE’s Air Quality Planning and Monitoring Program. “There were 27 days where temperatures were equal to or greater than 90 degrees [Fahrenheit],” says Woodman. “The average, going back to 1981, has been 29 days where it is 90 degrees F or higher. As for rainfall, it was wetter than normal in July, and drier than normal in May. June and August received normal amounts of rainfall.”
Ozone is a secondary pollutant and its formation is caused by emissions of primary pollutants (from vehicle tailpipes and power plants) and meteorological conditions. One requirement of ozone formation is the presence of strong sunlight and hot temperatures. Consequently, ozone pollution can be a problem in our region during the warmer summer months of the year. Ozone formation can be influenced by other meteorological factors such as precipitation, wind speed and direction, and cloud cover.
When you inhale ozone, it travels throughout your respiratory tract. Repeated exposure to ozone can inflame lung tissues and cause respiratory infections.
To illustrate how weather influences air quality, the month of May showed that. although rainfall was below normal, two factors helped air quality to remain very good for the entire month. The temperatures were relatively cool during the month – there were no recorded temperatures above 90 degrees. The other factor was overcast skies. Even though there was below normal rainfall, there were 19 partly cloudy days and 8 cloudy days.
In contrast, the poorest air quality occurred during August, where higher temperatures (nine days of 90 degrees or higher), less than normal rainfall and fewer overcast skies were prevalent.
“We had three Code Red days [exceedances] this summer for the one-hour standard, none of them were in the Washington DC area,” said Brian Hug, Division Chief, MDE’s Air Quality Planning and Monitoring Program. “The average is 10, so we are doing much, much better when we measure by that standard.”
“When we look at how we did with the new federal eight-hour ozone standard,
we had an average season with 27 exceedances.” said Hug. “Overall, I believe we
had a pretty decent summer.”
A more detailed ozone report will follow in future eMDE issues.
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