The "Do We Really Need Rain?" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Going through my morning newspaper and checking out what Code color my home town of Lancaster, Pennsylvania may be in today.  I recently read about air quality codes and what colors go with each type of air quality.  At the time, Pennsylvania was under a cloud of unhealthy air caused by smoke from Canadian wildfires.  The State Department of Environmental Protection had declared a Code Red Air Quality Action Day for the entire state of Pennsylvania.  In some places, actual air quality reached more dangerous Code Purple and Code Maroon levels.  I must admit I didn't know they had those two ratings. The federal Environmental Protection Agency measures and rates air pollution on a scale from 0 to 500 called the Air Quality Index.  The lower the number, the cleaner the air.  The AQI is also broken into colors.  Green (0-50) is healthy. Yellow (51-100) is seen as acceptable.  Orange (101-150) means the air is likely to affect certain groups, such as the very young, old, and people with asthma.  An AQI in the red zone (151-200) means even people without sensitivities could feel health effects from breathing the dirty air.  The EPS recommends people limit outdoor activity in this zone.  Purple (201-300) is very unhealthy as is maroon (301-500).  When the AQI is above 300, it ranks as a health emergency and all people in the area should avoid spending time outside.  The Department of Environmental Protection air quality action alerts are based on forecasts and are generally not updated frequently during the day, which is why actual air quality can be more severe than what is warned in alerts.  Usually the alerts are for specific geographic locations because of weather patterns and nearby industry.  Pollution caused by Canadian wildfire smoke is uncharted territory for the agency.  During periods of high pollution, people can check area-specific AQIs, updated hourly, at airnow. gov.  The website shows two AQI scores: one for particle pollution and one for ozone.  Particule pollution is made up of very small pieces of soot, metals or other toxins that can get embedded in the lungs.  Ozone is a gas that's harmful when breathed in.  It forms from a combination of heat and different pollutants known as volatile organic compounds.  EPA was forecasting an AQI in the orange range for Sunday into Monday.  How accurate these forecasts might be haven't been proven yet.  The north-east United States really needs a good soaking.  Hopefully that will happen in the near future.  Only time will tell.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.