Can fog be bad for your health?
When there is fog, there is little to no air movement. That means unhealthy pollutants are lingering for longer periods of time.
It also means we're inhaling more pollutants.
By Monday evening, the air quality from Arlington in Snohomish County, down to the Tacoma area was either "moderate" or "unhealthy for sensitive groups," according to the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency. That has been the norm over the past several days, with stagnant air and lingering fog.
A temperature inversion is the culprit for the days worth of foggy weather. A temperature inversion, usually just called an inversion, occurs when warm air moves over cooler air at the surface.
Warm air is less dense than cold air, so it hovers over the cooler air in the atmosphere. The marine layer, or the fog and low clouds, are cool and more dense so they can't "float" up and into the atmosphere and therefore hovers near the ground for a long time.
Air quality levels are expected to stay below good through Tuesday before new systems bring in cleaner air.
