Breathe Deep: Few Ozone Alerts So Far this Summer

Walk outside and take a deep breath, the air is still fresh. You may have seen some hazy skies over the last few days, but it`s not because of pollution. In fact, Central Arkansas has only had one ozone alert day this year -- a far cry from four years ago, in the year 2000, there were 14 days. Friday started as a sunny day, but ended with rain, the kind of weather pattern that experts say keep our skies in the clear. "Cooler than normal, wetter than normal, and we`ve had weather passages to move the dirty air out," said Jim McKenzie, Metroplan. The hazardous is dangerous mostly to sensitive groups. "The very young, the old people with respiratory disease or folks who exercise a lot outdoors," McKenzie explains. This year there has only been one ozone alert day, on July 15th. The level reached orange, which is unhealthy for sensitive groups, children or people with breathing problems. Even though the weather has been kind, skies have still been a little hazy. "Right now we`re having some particulate matter, haze blown in from wildfires up in Alaska, that`s how far this stuff can travel," said McKenzie. But as long as the wind blows and the rain falls, we can take a deep breath of fresh air. "We`re so on the bubble we`re at the mercy of the weather," he said. To keep an eye on the alert days, long onto www.ozoneactiondays.org