Monitoring and forecasting air quality around Pahoa
Sample smoke model image.The state Department of Health (DOH) has set up three air-quality monitoring stations to warn of potentially dangerous conditions as a result of the June 27 lava flow threatening Hawai‘i Island town of Pahoa, and is working to make data from the monitors available to the public via a website. Meanwhile, scientists in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences are putting knowledge gained from vog modeling to give Big Island residents a two-day forecast on where the smoke will most likely blow. “Essentially, we input how much burnable material there is at the front of the lava flow and that is burning and producing smoke, and we are modeling the dispersion of that smoke for the residents of the Big Island,” said professor Steven Businger.
Read more about it in West Hawaii Today, KITV4, and Liberty Voice. Image courtesy of AP/US Geological Survey.