Stupid Smoke!

If you were in the Jonesboro area this evening, you know that the air quality was BAD. Farmers are burning their fields and it seems like they are burning a lot more this year! The rest of us have to suffer through it. Despite the burn ban, the fields are still being burned. Not sure how that works or if they are exempt. the Greene County officials tell me that nobody is exempt. I guess there is nobody to enforce the ban. Who knows...

Anywho, this problem was compounded this evening due to an atmospheric condition we call an inversion. Simply put, the air was warmer as you went up... briefly. Below is a Skew T from this evening. Actually, it's a model of the atmosphere. I have not seen the Little Rock Balloon data yet... but let's continue.

This is zoomed waaaay in on the bottom 2000 ft of the atmosphere profile. The red line shows the temperature. At 7:00 this evening the temperature at the surface was about 68 degrees. About 600' up, the air was roughly 72 degrees. Not much of a difference, but enough to "trap" the smoke and make us GAG!

As we go through the night, this may ease back a little. I just wish the burning would stop.

Ryan