The Air (And The Weather) Sucks Right Now

The past ... oh, I don't know, three or four days, the quality of the air has sucked.  And for the past ... oh, I don't know, two or three days there's been an Air Quality Alert for the area.  The air aloft is so warm, and the wind so calm, that the pollutants have been able to stick close to the ground and not move anywhere.

The thing is, I thought this Air Quality Alert was supposed to end some time around Tuesday.  Then they extended it to yesterday/Wednesday at 6 p.m.  I just saw on the 10 o'clock news that they extended it to midnight.  And on one website (though not on another) I saw that it was extended yet again, to 2:30 this/Thursday afternoon.  Do Air Quality Alerts get extended this frequently?

I have had this aggravating cough since my sister gave it to me in Hawai'i.  Whenever I have caught these winter coughs, I'll be coughing for weeks.  I think it's gotten better the past few days, but I still aggressive hack at times throughout the day, and I wonder if it's because of the shitty air outside.  Then again, I am a hypochondriac; maybe just hearing about the bad air quality makes me cough.

One more observation.  This past week we've had temperatures around freezing.  That's great -- in a way.  Honestly, if you live in Minnesota, daytime temps around 32 isn't that bad to walk around in.  The snow that we got assailed with last week (and when I was gone for the two weeks prior) has been melting, sometimes through the night as well.  In fact, it doesn't have to get to 32 degrees for the snow to melt; if it's sunny, the air temp can dip to 30 and even, dare I say, 28 and snow will still melt.  (I want to think that climate change has something to do with this, but it could just be physics.)  However, there is a downside.  If there is precipitation, it can come in the form of ice, and in my opinion, ice is a hell of a lot more dangerous than snow because ice is way, way more slippery to drive on than snow.  We've had that off and on this week.  It was really bad yesterday/Wednesday morning, where there was so much ice the traffic was essentially at a standstill.  It took me half an hour to get to work; when it's smooth sailing, I can get to work in 12 minutes.  I have never taken that long to drive in to work at my current company.

Also, it seems like whenever we haven't been hit with ice, there's been this "freezing fog" to worry about.  It's where the dense air meets up with surfaces that are cold enough to where that fog freezes onto that surface like, well, ice.  We've had that a couple days this week, and it's supposed to happen, again, this/Thursday morning.  I hope to God that the ride in this morning won't be as bad as yesterday's, but I can't guarantee that.  I can guarantee that if it were only 10 degrees outside, we wouldn't have to worry about this freezing fog and/or ice crap.