{"id":745,"date":"2026-07-06T11:22:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T06:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=745"},"modified":"2026-07-06T11:22:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T06:22:22","slug":"after-the-fourth-socals-weather-making-bad-air-quality-situation-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=745","title":{"rendered":"After the Fourth, SoCal&#8217;s weather making bad air-quality situation worse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/dc7932f\/2147483647\/strip\/false\/crop\/3000x2000+0+0\/resize\/1500x1000!\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F88%2Fd2%2F78fd06da418898fac176a3b63137%2F1561513-me-stand-alone-slice-of-life-alc-01.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div data-element=\"story-body\" data-subscriber-content=\"\">\n<p>It\u2019s so hot, even the fallout from the fireworks is sluggish. <\/p>\n<p>The region\u2019s air quality alerts associated with the Fourth of July concluded Sunday afternoon. But as Southern California\u2019s focus shifts to the sweltering heat expected for the day and the rest of the week, an expert noted that soot and particulate matter may not be dispersing normally.<\/p>\n<p>The heat is affecting how air pollution disperses over the region, National Weather Service meteorologist Carol Ciliberti said Sunday. <\/p>\n<p>The high-pressure system that\u2019s causing temperature spikes, Ciliberti said, is also depressing much of the particulate matter, pushing it closer to the ground.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf there\u2019s a layer where there\u2019s smoggy or particle stuff, then it\u2019s suppressed closer to the ground, so that makes the situation worse,\u201d Ciliberti said. <\/p>\n<p>Normally, the onshore flow \u2014 a west-to-southwest wind that creates the ocean breeze and pushes air away from the coasts \u2014 would push the particulate matter with it. But today, the winds are weaker, meaning the pollution carried by the air isn\u2019t being dispersed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we had stronger onshore flow, that would help to disperse some of the fine particle pollution,\u201d Ciliberti said. \u201cThat\u2019s not happening.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some straggling celebrations were expected to continue Sunday night but would not create the same amount of pollution they did on the Fourth, Ciliberti said. <\/p>\n<p>Compounding the poor air quality, this year\u2019s celebration comes on the heels of a late June warehouse fire in Boyle Heights that released <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/environment\/story\/2026-07-02\/boyle-heights-blaze-choked-la-with-astronomical-soot-pollution\"><u>extraordinary amounts of soot and smoke<\/u><\/a> across L.A. County, on par with pollution generated by the previous year\u2019s wildfires.<\/p>\n<p>An alert for hazardous air quality issued Saturday evening by the South Coast Air Quality Management District due to the soot and particulates from fireworks ended at 3 p.m. Sunday for central and southern Los Angeles County, northern Orange County, and Riverside and San Bernardino counties. <\/p>\n<p>July 4 and 5 are traditionally two of the worst days of the year for the region\u2019s air quality, according to the South Coast AQMD. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s so hot, even the fallout from the fireworks is sluggish. The region\u2019s air quality alerts associated with the Fourth of July concluded Sunday afternoon. But as Southern California\u2019s focus shifts to the sweltering heat expected for the day and the rest of the week, an expert noted that soot and particulate matter may not&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/d92ee0b\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/3000x1575+0+213\/resize\/1200x630!\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F88%2Fd2%2F78fd06da418898fac176a3b63137%2F1561513-me-stand-alone-slice-of-life-alc-01.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}