This story just ran in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer yesterday about smog in Seattle violating the Clean Air Act for the first time since the 1990s. The article makes a good point that this doesn’t mean that smog is suddenly getting worse, but the EPA has tightened its regulations based on new studies about the health effects of smog. It’s a problem exacerbated by intense heat like we had last weekend (I noticed a smog alert while I was down in Portland as well).

In light of these recent alerts and violations, I was reminded of a visual we put together a while ago depicting smog patterns in the Puget Sound area. Check it out (click here or on the image to see the flash version):

seattle smog still