The ozone roller coaster continues and Wednesday’s Uintah Basin winter ozone report provides a short-term and long-term outlook. USU Bingham Research Center Director Dr. Seth Lyman shares that the winds early this week did a great job of cleaning out the inversion and bringing ozone levels back down but inversion conditions are expected to be back sometime Thursday or Friday with the possibility of high ozone through at least Sunday. Stormy weather predicted next week, however, will likely end the episode and bring low ozone conditions back. The long term outlook isn’t quite so positive. “It’s still hard to imagine a pleasant way out of our current high-snow predicament,” shares Dr. Lyman. “We are seeing some increased exposure of vegetation and south-facing slopes, but overall the snow depth and snow cover haven’t changed much. The storm next week could come in warm enough to cause some melt, but there is still too much snow to have a lot of hope for enough melt to make a difference.” High ozone or at least the threat of it is expected for at least the next 2 to 3 weeks.
