SALT LAKE CITY — The winter inversion season typically begins across northern Utah in November, but the current episode has really kicked things off with an ugly and somewhat unusual bang.
“The strength and the duration of this current event right now is a little atypical for this time of year," said Jonathan Meyer, assistant state climatologist with the Utah State Climate Center. "We normally see this level of inversion impacts during January and February”
Meyer sees an overall trend with the inversions due to less snow cover on valley floors.
“With less snow cover, we might see less strong inversions in the future, but having twice as many people living inside of those inverted air conditions means that pollution emissions have skyrocketed over recent decades,” he said.
Population growth offsets the impact of less snow and warmer winters, increasing the intensity of inversion events for the Wasatch Front.
Weather
Salt Lake City has the worst air quality in the entire U.S.
To help battle the current inversion that has blanketed the valleys for days, a weak storm system moving in for the weekend will provide some relief, but what about the long-range forecast for this year’s season?
"More of those sort of nickel and dime type of precipitation events may be more frequent, which is good news, because as those pass through, they tend to scour out the inverted air conditions, and we kind of reset the valley air clean things out a bit," Meyer explained.
Even though the inversion outlook doesn’t look so hazy moving ahead, seeing the valleys under the current pollutant state serves as a reminder.
"In some ways, the inversions, I think, are beneficial because they give us a tangible experience of the amount of pollutants that are being emitted just by our daily activities," said Meyer, "and I hope that that allows a bit of a social trend towards more environmental transportation options."
The Utah State Climate Center wants to remind residents and visitors of a helpful tool found on their website that gives long-range forecasts on the state's inversion events.
