Ah so that’s why it’s been kind of hazy looking here lately. I thought it was just the humidity, but it’s slightly different than normal humidity haze.
Yah, no, this one has been quite different than that bluish haze of airborne ozone common in late summertime air.
The first tell was when the intensity (contrast) of shadows dropped like a rock beginning on early Monday, and the second tell was when the high sunlight hitting the ground was decidedly yellow-orange instead of near-white: airborne particulates and unburnt volatiles from wild fires block the shorter-wavelength sunlight from reaching the ground, letting through just the redder part of the spectrum.
What we’ve been seeing lately is reminiscent of when I lived on the west coast during peak fire season, or decades ago when both vehicular and industrial volatile particulates were airborne in places like Houston on any given day when the wind blew just right from the direction of the petrochemical complexes along the Ship Channel. I shot a photo from, I think, April 1990, on one of those afternoons where the mid-afternoon sun was deep orange.
During a high ozone event, there will be a lot of airborne haze, but it’s the shorter wavelengths which get diffracted by that ozone — giving it that bluish tint, and sunlight hitting the ground won’t skew toward the yellow/orange end of the visible spectrum.
The third tell — at least for me — is my throat Monday began to feel phlegm was trying to mask irritation.
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