Smog covers parts of Northern Utah, inversion season begins

SALT LAKE CITY – Smog settled in over valleys in Northern Utah Sunday, at the end of the long holiday weekend.

While Christmas lights are making our homes and offices look warm and bright, it’s also that time of year when things start looking a bit hazy.

“One of the main symptoms we see with from those inversion conditions is that kind of poor air quality,” David Church, a science and operations officer with the National Weather Service, said.

He said the hazy-looking air is merely a symptom of an inversion. He said the definition of inversion is when “the air temperature, which normally decreases with height, is actually either kind of steady or increasing with height.”

The pollutants accumulate in the air that’s trapped locally.

Cameras across the Salt Lake Valley showed smog lying over the city. The view from Farnsworth Peak in the Oquirrh Mountains to Interstate 15 in Clearfield was less than crystal clear.