Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
I live in Centerville and am retiring soon. I need to move but stay as close to SLC as possible. How far west (Granstville) or south (Spanishfork), for example, would I need to relocate to get in a cleaner air situation. Thanks John
**********************************************************
Cough cough...that's what you want to avoid. We have some nasty air in Salt Lake. Some of the worst in the US!! Combine a major population, a big valley with mountains, western high pressure and too many cars on the road and poof, bad air. We also have a ton of flowering trees and plants for pollen.
In the winter it's inversion air filled with particulate matter in the summer, we have issues with Ozone.
If you're looking to get better air the best solution is to go UP. In the winter when the inversion sets up and we have a week of bad air, it's from high pressure. The warm above is preventing the pollution from mixing out. So you want to get above the pollution layer. Somewhere on bench would be a fine location but not everyone can afford that, moving west might not be a bad idea.
The air in Grantsville will be less polluted than the air in Salt Lake. Spanish Fork will probably be close to the same. After a few days of bad air in the SLC valley, it does mix around into other locations. Again, the trick is to get above it but not everyone can afford that. Even upper Millcreek in SLC still gets pollution. The Suncrest area in Draper can get above it along with Emmigration Canyon.
Good luck in your decision, choose clean air today and condense your errands into one trip!
Answered by KSL Meteorologist Dina Freedman.
