Tulsa is in the thick of ozone season, the months of the year when hot, dry, sunny conditions help the pollutant form at ground level, and it's been a mild one so far.
The four-year average of ozone levels the Environmental Protection Agency looks at for its dirty air list is currently at 67 parts per billion.
"The threshold number for what’s acceptable is 70, so we are still under that and meeting the standard. We’ve just had one ozone alert day. That was back in June, and here we are halfway through the season," said INCOG Air Quality Program Manager Nancy Graham.
At this time last year, Tulsa already had three ozone alert days and finished the season, which runs May through September, with nine, the highest number since 21 in 2012.
"All of the moisture that we’ve had earlier this season in the horrific flooding and still the humidity that’s in the air is helping to dissipate the ozone problems in a different way than last year," Graham said.
Graham warned it’s no time to get complacent.
"Throughout the summer, or ozone season, we do encourage people to do things like getting their gasoline in the evenings when at all possible. If you can wait to do it in the evening, it’s a cleaner choice. Doing any kind of transportation that isn’t an emission-forming transportation," Graham said.
The toxic, ground-level form of ozone gas forms when nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds react with each other in sunlight. The pollutant attacks lung tissue.
