Thursday, January 28, 2016

Dirty Air: Spanish Fork catching up with Salt Lake


I like to think that air quality is Spanish Fork is cleaner than the urban metropolis of Salt Lake City, but that isn't true all the time. Here is a time series of PM 2.5 pollution in downtown Salt Lake City (purple) and Spanish Fork (red).


On January 27th, Spanish Fork air was about 20 micrograms cleaner than Salt Lake City. But Spanish Fork's pollution concentration has caught up to Salt Lake's today. Good thing we have a storm coming through Utah Friday night which will mix all this gunk out.

This data is from Purple Air. Looks like you can contact them to get a sensor at your house...http://www.purpleair.org/

Sunday, January 24, 2016

Snow in the east

Aftermath of large snow storm in the eastern US. Let it be remembered that this storm was predicted extremely well. We knew this could be coming about a week in advance. Then had even higher confidence in the storm and its impact several days before the snow came. Really neat!

Credit: NASA WorldView

Thursday, January 21, 2016

This is incredible!

Total new snow between now (Thursday morning) and Saturday Evening. This is a big storm. Source: EDD
Because of meteorology we know what the weather will bring in the next few days. I think this is absolutely fascinating! The forecast for feet of snow in Washington DC area this weekend is quite incredible. Yes. But I'm sitting here amazed that we can warn people of the storm several days in advance! (I love me job)

Read the Washington DC snow forecast:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/01/21/blizzard-warning-high-winds-around-two-feet-of-snow-forecast-for-d-c-area/

Wow! Look at this noreaster...
NAM Forecast

Thursday, January 7, 2016

Fog in Salt Lake City

Thick fog in the Salt Lake Valley this morning.
MSI Building

WBB Camera

Frontrunner Central Station

University of Utah Presidents Circle

U Met Group Web Cams. Low visibility in the valley, but clear up on the bench (at this time anyways)
Twitter

Airport Observations

UofU. Fog moving up on the benches

MesoWest Relative Humidity

Meanwhile, down in Utah County...pretty low clouds (and no snow. The rain melted it all away)


Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Dew Photos

These pictures are really neat! Check out this guys work of dew photography

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

WBB tug-o-war

Interesting case during this inversion...the William Brown Building at the University of Utah is stuck between the cold air in the valley and the warmer air above. Look at the quick temperature fluctuations in the evening.

Also, a picture from the University of Utah looking south-west. Lots of gunk in the valley.

Looks like we're on a clearing trend. Should be breathing a bit better for the next few days