By Michael Booth
Gazette-Times reporter | Posted: Tuesday, July 1, 2008 12:00 am
That smoky gunk in the air is blowing into Oregon on a rotating southwesterly wind from large forest fires and wildfires in northern California, and it will take a shift in the jet stream expected to begin today that could send them to the east.
"Winds from the south have blown the smoke all the way into Washington State now," Michael Goss, a forecaster with the Portland branch of the National Weather Service, said Monday. "It should stick around for awhile, but (today) it may start to blow east over The Cascades."
Goss said winds funneled the smoke into the southern Willamette Valley and further north, penned in by the Coast Range and Cascade Range mountains.
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality uses a color-coded Air Quality Index that lists six categories, ranging from good to hazardous. Corvallis was listed as having moderate air quality Monday, but that could improve or worsen today, dependent on the wind direction.
Southern Benton County and Eugene's air quality was worse than that Monday, when it was listed as "unhealthy for sensitive groups," meaning the very young or very old, people with lung problems or compromised immune systems.
That still is an improvement from the weekend, when the air in Eugene made hard breathing unhealthful for athletes who were pushing their limits during the U.S. Track and Field Olympic Trials.
Smoke concentrations in Southern Oregon, including Josephine and Jackson counties, reached the "unhealthy for all groups" level on Monday.
It's unlikely that firefighters can get the northern California fires soon. As of Monday evening, 22 large wildfires had consumed more than 260,000 acres, and few had been contained, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture Web site.
One usual mid-smoke suspect is innocent: No field burning has begun, and isn't likely for weeks yet, according to the DEQ.