Post-202: Pollution Wave in Seoul, Feb.-March 2014

It's getting to be springtime, which is a time when Seoul's skies have a way of "betaking an awful shade" of orangish-somethingish, allegedly from dust storms way off in China somewhere. One of my first posts here (#12), about this time last year, attempted to document one of those episodes. I was in Korea at the time.

Having been in the USA since January 31st 2014, I missed the most recent episode of this, which was big, sustained. I saw my friend Jared mention it. The "Air-Korea" website confirms it. Pollution data easily accessible there.

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Here is the PM-10 air pollution data for February 1st to today, by hour, for "my city":

PM-10 Air Pollution / Bucheon, Korea (near Seoul) / Feb.-March 2014 / [Source: Air-Korea]

The pollution "spike" you see there (yellow and orange) lasted eight full days, from late evening February 21st all the way through till late evening March 1st. (A second [30-hour] spike occurred two days later.)

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March First is "Korean Independence Movement Day". It's nice that the pollution decided to lift in line with that holiday. It was even followed by "blue skies" [blue boxes, i.e. clean air] in the AM of March 2nd, even if just briefly.

I think I'm glad I missed this one. It's quite unhealthy to be in those sustained "orange box" conditions. I remember running late once in Korea (actually running, too, to make time), on a day pollution was at those levels. I wasn't in bad shape, either. I started to cough pretty quickly. Not good.

It's in the 60s Fahrenheit (15-20 C) here in Arlington, Va., as I write, after snow last week. I'm pretty sure that most places in the USA (including Arlington) would have blue boxes on the above chart most every day.