Smog covers parts of Northern Utah, inversion season begins

SALT LAKE CITY – Smog settled in over valleys in Northern Utah Sunday, at the end of the long holiday weekend.

While Christmas lights are making our homes and offices look warm and bright, it’s also that time of year when things start looking a bit hazy.

“One of the main symptoms we see with from those inversion conditions is that kind of poor air quality,” David Church, a science and operations officer with the National Weather Service, said.

He said the hazy-looking air is merely a symptom of an inversion. He said the definition of inversion is when “the air temperature, which normally decreases with height, is actually either kind of steady or increasing with height.”

The pollutants accumulate in the air that’s trapped locally.

Cameras across the Salt Lake Valley showed smog lying over the city. The view from Farnsworth Peak in the Oquirrh Mountains to Interstate 15 in Clearfield was less than crystal clear.

“It basically just acts like a lid over the atmosphere where pollutants and any kind of air that is released here in the valley just stays locally,” Church said.

He said there’s always been inversions in the Salt Lake Valley.

“We’re kind of a bowl, right? We are surrounded at all sides by the mountains,” Church said.

He said the way to push it out is with a storm.

“When a storm moves through, it can both kind of remove the lid and it increases the winds, and both of those kind of help to scour out any stagnant air that’s been in place,” Church said.

This inversion could linger.

“It’s looking like we’re going to be kind of stuck with it through at least mid-week,” Church said.

This round isn’t expected to be as harsh for people who are sensitive to it. The Utah Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Air Quality forecast the next three days to be moderate conditions.

They recommend that highly-sensitive people consider taking it easy if they’re participating in any prolonged or heavy outdoor activity.