If you
live in the Rogue Valley, this post will reaffirm what you already suspected: This
is the longest period of unhealthy air quality on the books for the city. (At
least since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency started taking records.)
The
National Weather Service pulled together these graphics through Aug. 14. (And
yes, we’ve only added to the unhealthy tally each day since then.) By Aug. 14, Medford
had already seen 19 days on unhealthy air, topping all of 2017 and far
exceeding the number of unhealthy days in 2015 and 2013.
Some
takeaways from National Weather Service:
- This smoke event started much earlier than most smoke events
- We have some hope that air quality will improve by early September,
if previous events are any indicator (2017 being an exceptionally long
event).
- Those predictions can change depending on weather and fire activity