With summer now in the rear-view mirror, we also leave behind pollution season and potential high concentrations of ground-level ozone. For fourteen counties in our area, stretching from New Jersey through Delaware into Maryland, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission oversees the process of forecasting ozone levels and getting the word out when ozone pollution is expected to become unhealthy.

This past summer, ten unhealthy ozone days were forecast - what DVRPC calls "Ozone Action Days." On eight of those ten days, ozone did reach unhealthy levels somewhere in the area. On the other two days, ozone levels peaked just below the unhealthy threshold. Also, there were four other days when unhealthy ozone was not forecast but did occur, but on each of those days the air quality was unhealthy at only one location, so these were not widespread pollution events.

With ten unhealthy ozone days forecast and twelve actually occurring, this past summer had more pollution episodes than the last few summers, but still not all that out-of-the-ordinary for this area.