How can air quality be 'moderate' while it's so hazy?

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) -- When Sid Bhandari arrived in Salt Lake City for a work trip on Monday, one of the first things he noticed was the haze along the Wasatch Range.

“First time in Salt Lake City,” he said. “I would have wished we could have seen the mountains a little bit better.”

At least the haze didn’t come with nasty air quality. According to the Utah Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), conditions were only in the “moderate” range Monday for small particulate matter pollution, which is associated with wildfire smoke.

But how can air quality be relatively healthy when the landscape looks so fuzzy?

Bryce Bird, air quality director at the DEQ, said that the worsening haze on the Wasatch Front is a product of recent weather changes. The high-pressure system that sat over the region last week has pushed east, allowing smoke from wildfires across the American West to blow in and mingle with the smoke from Utah’s own wildfires.

“With distant smoke, you start seeing the visual impacts before you see the impacts on the monitors,” Bird said.

Yet, when that pollution does fall into the valleys, people will be ab...