On Sat, 12 Jul 2014 07:55:28 -0700, sf > wrote:

>On Sat, 12 Jul 2014 08:03:22 -0600, Janet Bostwick
> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 12 Jul 2014 05:31:00 -0700, sf > wrote:
>>
>> snip
>> >
>> >Sadly, it seems like the skys aren't clear and blue anywhere anymore.
>> >I go places where I expect to see clear skys and they are not. China
>> >pretends it's going green, but it's belching out coal smoke like
>> >crazy. We have all the coal states doing practically the same thing
>> >(with better scrubbers) and wild fires everywhere in the summertime.
>> >We were at some beautiful vista up North a couple of years ago... I
>> >forget exactly where - Idaho, South Dakota and there was a haze in the
>> >air. We had multi-state brush fires in the West that probably caused
>> >it. but the ranger said past air quality tests said the haze they get
>> >can be pollution from as far away as Los Angeles. I believe it,
>> >because haze from the brush fires in Washington made it all the way
>> >down to Arizona that year.
>>
>> Sometimes when the wildfires are many and bad in CA, AZ etc., it
>> smells and looks just like the wildfire is just outside our city. It
>> isn't just what you would call haze, it's more like actual smoke in
>> density.
>
>I can wrap my mind around air currents in a localized area, but I'm
>always amazed by the larger ones. I "get" global Westerlys and Trade
>Winds, but regionalized N-S and S-N wind currents over such a massive
>land area had never occurred to me before. It's all circular.

It never occurred to me until I experienced it. I remember one night
driving the foothill roads around the city to see how much danger
there was to my house. I did this because the smoke smell was so
immediate that I was sure that the hillside was in flames. Not so. It
was all coming in from the west.
Janet US