Dangerous Air Quality Advisory For Metro Detroit Friday

METRO DETROIT, MI — An “Action Day advisory” will likely be issued by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality on Friday. According to a publicly released statement about the region’s air quality outlook, the department said weather conditions are unfavorable.

“However, the cloud models are keeping the Detroit area under mostly clear skies with low wind speeds and high humidity,” wrote the MDEQ’s Jim Haywood. “With the elevated ozone numbers we have seen this week, this gives a high probability of more elevated ozone during Friday afternoon.”

When air quality warnings are in effect, active children and adults, and people with respiratory diseases such as asthma, are encouraged to limit prolonged outdoor exertion. People and businesses are urged to avoid activities that lead to ozone formation, including refueling vehicles or topping off when refueling, using gas-powered lawn equipment and using charcoal lighter fluid.

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Friday’s advisory is termed as meaning “unhealthy for sensitive groups” of people. Haywood writes that conditions will improve after Friday.

“The threat appears to subside on Saturday as all models are indicating clouds and showers throughout the day,” he wrote. “A general clean-out of the atmosphere begins early Sunday and will end any high ozone threat.”

The MDEQ uses an air quality index to rate conditions into six categories. The worst condition is “hazardous,” which means there are 0.405 - 0.604 parts per million of ozone particulates in the air over a one-hour period. Other categories are very unhealthy (0.205-0.404), unhealthy (0.165 - 0.204), and unhealthy for sensitive groups (0.125 - 0.164).

The other two categories are measured over eight-hour periods. Moderate conditions range .060 - .075 and “good” conditions are 0 - 0.059 parts per million.

Photo by Charity Read via Flickr Commons