Lay off Anatahan

Anatahan has been getting all of the blame for our poor visibility, but let's give the volcano a break. Or, as the National Weather Service put it:

THE MAJOR CAUSE OF THE HAZE CAN BE TRACED TO A PERSISTENT WIND FLOW PATTERN ACROSS THE NORTH PACIFIC WHICH HAS BEEN FAVORABLE IN BRINGING ASIAN SMOG ACROSS NORTHERN JAPAN AND SOUTHWARD INTO THE MARIANA ISLANDS. THE COMBINATION OF WINTER-TIME SOOT FROM ASIA...HIGH PRESSURE OVER KOREA AND JAPAN...AND A DEEP LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM EAST OF JAPAN CREATED A PERSISTENT NORTH TO SOUTH FLOW THAT TYPICALLY AFFECTS THE LOCAL AREA ONCE OR TWICE A YEAR IN THE LATE WINTER AND EARLY SPRING. LOCALLY...A TEMPERATURE INVERSION...WHICH HELPS TRAP POLLUTION CLOSE TO THE GROUND...AND LIGHT WINDS FOR THE PAST FEW DAYS HAS KEPT THE SMOG AND LOCALLY-PRODUCED POLLUTION OVER THE ISLANDS.

TO ADD TO THE MISERY...NORTHERLY WINDS ARE BRINGING SOME VOG...OR VOLCANIC SMOG..FROM THE ANATAHAN VOLCANO. IN ADDITION...SEA SPRAY FROM THE HEAVY SURF CONDITIONS IS ADDING TO THE MIX.

Oh, winter-time soot from Asia "that typically affects the local area once or twice a year in the late winter and early spring." Just our normal weather folks, pollution from China following their gewgaws our way, or maybe the Indonesians and Malaysians are still burning their forests. At least nobody's found a reason to do that on Saipan yet... except for a few places where they want to hunt our toy deer.

Probably not Indonesia now, though, their problem has been flooding, and deforestation has nothing to do with that.

The kids were cute this morning, trying to say they shouldn't go to school until EMO updated its website. Clever. They were in the room last night when I was saying there wouldn't be word until eight or nine in the morning--the working stiffs arriving at 7:30, fixing coffee and working on recommendations for when the decision-makers showed up. They were shattered when I said 'the sky looks blue' and herded them toward the car.