Air quality isn’t generally something Clallam and Jefferson County residents worry about.
Few automobiles clog our roads and streets.
And even fewer factories and mills pump toxins into our air.
But officials at the Olympic Regional Clean Air Agency in Olympia don’t take air quality in this area of pristine forests for granted.
With cold temperatures and a lack of rainfall sometimes come “temperature inversions,” which can affect air quality in Port Angeles and Port Townsend.
“It’s a combination of things when we have a temperature inversion,” said Craig Weckesser, the agency’s public information officer. “The air gets still and it gets colder and so people use their woodstoves.
“Or they do some outdoor burning or contractors will do one big burn without thinking about it.
“There’s no wind so it just hangs there.”
That’s not a problem this weekend, with gusty winds and periods of heavy rainfall predicted to continue through Monday.
But last month, when overnight temperatures dipped to near freezing levels and rainfall was nowhere in sight, the agency recorded reduced air quality levels in Port Angeles not seen since the mid-1990s, Weckesser said.
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