Alerts for poor air quality issued in Mecklenburg and Cabarrus until Wednesday night
An air quality alert for Mecklenburg and Cabarrus Counties was issued by the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality until 8 p.m. on Wednesday.
According to the department, the two counties received a code orange for air quality, meaning it can be unhealthy for sensitive groups, such as those with lung problems, asthma, or older adults and children.
If “there’s poor quality air to somebody who has, say, asthma ... they could have problems being outdoors,” said Steve Wilkinson, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service. “So they should limit prolonged outdoor exertion.”
Wake and Franklin counties were also code orange and issued a poor air quality warning on Wednesday.
Both Mecklenburg and Cabarrus counties are expected to reach 108 on the Air Quality Index, which measures the quality of air with value groups. Between 0-50 is good, 51-100 is moderate, 101-150 is unhealthy for sensitive groups, 151-200 is unhealthy, 201-300 is very unhealthy, and anything above 301 is hazardous.
The rest of the state was code yellow, or moderate air quality. All four counties are expected to move down to code yellow on Thursday, according to the AQI.
How air gets bad
Wilkinson said the poor air quality can come from particulates, or a microscopic mix of particulates from pollution, building up in the ground-level ozone but then not being dispersed.
“It’s been kind of comfortable for a while, but it is starting to heat up, so essentially, you’re getting a hot atmosphere that’s not moving very much,” he said. “When there’s a healthy wind moving things around, it gets dispersed and then spread around. And in a case where there’s very little wind, it just kind of collects. That’s the main issue.”
This story was originally published August 28, 2024 at 1:35 PM.
