(no subject)

[olivermoss]

The air's been pretty good here outside of that one blip, but the weather service says that's due to change tonight. Smoke is supposed to come in tonight and is expected to stay. But right now it's clear so I am going to do some walking tonight and hope I don't regret it. I should probably go soon if I am going... I may use the bus to fling myself south and walk back.

I am feeling a lot better than I was, but having been sick and the fatigue issues have snarfed up my sleep schedule badly. I keep winding up so tired I need to nap, but haven't gotten proper sleep so I've been muzzy and bleck. I get migraine issues when I try too hard to stay up so ... sucks to be me. Not only was I unproductive over the weekend, I also couldn't managed to watch a movie or just enjoy. But a long walk will help, esp since I am fairly non-bleh at the moment and getting out and moving will help get things back on track.

*Edits to Add*

Or on second thought! Man, why is Purple Air showing air quality as perfect? I was surprised considering the local weather service flat out said to plan for lung and eye irritation tonight.

I went outside and everything smelled like woodfire smoke. Then, my left eye started to tear. I got to the bus stop, checked the status with the QR code and trimet app was like 'bus? what bus?' I know it's a federal holiday but I didn't see an alert on the website and both weekday and weekend should have had several more buses. So... ???

So, I went home. I went a few blocks out of my way to get a few more steps in. Got home and washed my face. Tonight will be writing and yoga instead. Purple was wrong, weather service was correct. Smoke is here.

I am so confused. All the AQ sites say Portland is fine, but the weather sites and the local weather service have alerts. What is real?

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

Ugh, I HATE when information is that conflicting! Almost especially when bigger national (or global) services say something is fine, and it's only the local stuff that says something is bad... we had a few days of smoke like that last year. Things would say the AQ was perfectly fine, and I couldn't see the mountains from my apartment.

Yuck. I'm sorry you didn't get to have the long walk you'd hoped for, though definitely the right choice to turn around.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, some existing AQ stuff was set up to monitor ozone and industrial pollution and can't even see the smoke. But I thought Purple air was good at both? They were my go-to. Since AQ problems can be hard to notice and the problem can sneak up on you I really need tools to be useful.

[mistressofmuses]

Right? Stuff like that can change SO fast. I guess it makes sense that some monitoring equipment might not be capable of tracking everything... but while ozone is probably our biggest issue, smoke is pretty close behind it, so it's kind of useless to leave a major factor out!

[olivermoss]

Yeah, sadly the systems are mostly more than 5 years old and... the world changed fast

[mistressofmuses]

That's... very true. The world did change fast, and I don't think anyone anticipated to what degree wildfire smoke would become a long-ranging, long-lasting, semi-seasonal problem. It's always been a localized problem when there were fires, and there've certainly been long-ranging ash clouds and haze forever... but that used to feel like an "event" instead of just a Tuesday.