Summer air quality is improving in central Virginia

RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) -We’ve had some hazy weather recently because of the Canadian wildfires, but overall, air quality is improving during our summers.

Our typical summer days in central Virginia have nothing but blue skies, even with high humidity. But it didn’t use to look this way.

In the early 2000s, it seemed like every hot and humid summer day was also hazy, but that rarely shows up anymore.

“Ozone is the primary pollutant in the summer, that has been improving over the last several decades,” said Meteorologist Kristen Stumpf. “We’re not seeing as much health impacts as far as elevated ozone.”

Stumpf forecasts air quality for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. Her data shows there’s much less ozone than there used to be.

In the 1990s, every summer had at least 30 days of air quality alerts. Code purple days, the worst level of air quality, showed up almost yearly.

“Ozone is created generally in summer from [the] sun and the emissions,” Stumpf said. “So the length of sun in the summer helps create ozone.”

The last time we had multiple code purple days, meaning very unhealthy for everyone, was in 2002. The last time we had one at all was in 2008.

Every year after 2012 has had five or fewer code orange days and no code purple days, an amazing cleanup in the skies.

So what happened? We’re pumping fewer pollutants into the air.

“As our emissions and emission controls on vehicles and electricity generators and lawnmowers, anything that produces emissions has been improved over the years, ” said Stumpf.

But CO2, which fuels global warming, doesn’t contribute to ozone and has increased over the same time frame.

So our temperatures are climbing. There’s been a 2.7-degree climb for Richmond since the 1970s. Over the past 30 years, the climb has been around one and a half degrees.

It’s been an odd trend to watch. We’re getting hotter, but our long stretches of hazy summer days with high pollution look like a thing of the past.

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