California Fires = Hawaii Air Quality?

[lavagal]

Have any of you noticed the haze? Are any of you coughing a lot like me? I've had to use my emergency asthma inhaler a few times this week. From what I understand, this is smoke from the California fires. I've noticed a lot of people coughing, have you? Imagine what it must be like there. And thank goodness for all of this Halloween rain, although we could use more. It should help improve our air quality. Thoughts?

[Glen Miyashiro]

I thought that most of the overseas airborne dust transport was from Asia, not North America. There are some academic studies on the impacts of Chinese dust storms on Hawaii.

[Adri]

I've heard our local news suggesting that the haze from the California fires have affected Hawaii. I am too lazy to look further but this is one example.

http://starbulletin.com/2007/10/31/news/kokualine.html

[genepark]

I was sandwiched at a bar between two TV weathermen talking shop, and they mentioned vog was occurring last Saturday.

But yeah, it seems we were getting a little bit of that hot California air.

[oggboy]

Got up this morning feeling kind of congested, no wonder HC&S`s decides to burn cane as well. No wind at all in Kahului so the smoke just sat. Kinda like on New Years nite when no winds are blowing. Also with the smoke from So. Cal, made if worse. I`m sure alot of people with breathing problems had trouble this morning.

[craigwatanabe]

There may be some haze associated with the california fires however I think the real culprit is the new fissures erupting on the Big Island. We're getting a lot more vog lately due to the advancing flows. Mountain View Elementary School here on the Big Island is keeping their students indoors due to the increased vog activity there. With more than one vent spewing Sulphuric Acid smoke into our air now, one can safely assume there will be a higher level of vog pollution statewide.

This past weekend was probably the worst I've seen in Hilo ever. I drove to work thinking, "wow it's raining really hard in Hilo, can't even see Mauna Kea". And this was from Keaau.

To give those in Honolulu an example as to how bad it was, take a drive up Tantalus to the look out and envision not being able to see Waikiki, only thick clouds. That bad.

[tikiyaki]

Sure, Blame us :eek:

It's than darn Califorrnie.

That's a long distance for smoke to travel wihout dissipating. :rolleyes:

[tutusue]

This situation reminds me of when Mount Pinatobu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Pinatubo) in the Philippines blew during 1991. Hawaii got the most gorgeous sunsets because of it. Amazing how far reaching the effects of that eruption were. With the right winds I'd guess that we might get some of the California smoke.