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I rank the strength of wood smoke using three categories: Faint, Light, Moderate, and Strong/Heavy. I use qualifiers to further break down the categories such as Very Faint, Very Strong, when necessary. When the intensity of wood smoke is in between categories, I will note it in a way like Faint to Light or Moderate to Strong and the like.
To give you a clearer picture of what the categories mean I will define them.
Faint: You can slightly smell the wood smoke. It is present enough to know unmistakably it is wood smoke. You wouldn't want to breathe this air in your bedroom when you are trying to sleep.
Light: Wood smoke of a stronger intensity than Faint. It is potent enough to make you close your windows else your house will smell lightly like wood smoke. It is unpleasant to breathe.
Moderate: The wood smoke is strong enough to be very unpleasant. Wood smoke is the only thing you can smell. Moderate wood smoke will obliterate other odors like lilacs and blossoms. Being outside for a few minutes will leave your clothes with a light wood smoke odor. Breathing air this smoky long enough may cause sinus irritation.
Strong: The wood smoke is so intense it makes you sick to your stomach. Being in strong wood smoke for a few seconds will leave your clothes reeking of wood smoke. The strength of the odor in your clothes is comparable to spending a couple of hours in a smoky bar. You cannot stand to be outside in this intense smoke. You can often taste wood smoke this heavy. Leaving your windows open will make your whole house smell like burning wood in minutes. Strong wood smoke can cause burning sinuses, eye irritation, and nausea after a few minutes of breathing the air.
In my tabulation, I count wood smoke on the evening that it starts. When I log wood smoke daily, if the smoke persists after midnight I log it into the next day. For the purposes of this tabulation, I do not count wood smoke after midnight as being part of the next day. I count it as being part of the prior evening. If the wood smoke starts at 6 PM and lasts until 5 AM, that counts as one evening. For this tabulation, the evenings start at 4 PM. I chose this time because it is very rare to have any wood smoke before it.
I did not factor grass smoke into my tabulation. Grass burning tends to happen more in the morning or early afternoon from what I have experienced. Smoke from yard waste is not as much of a nuisance as wood smoke is and it does not last long. Smoky air from burning yard waste often does not last beyond 15 minutes. Wood smoke, on the other hand, often lasts 8 to 10 hours or longer in this city.
* My tabulation of late night burning may be understated as I am often not awake after 11 PM. All the data presented represents wood smoke where we live and nowhere else. It is what we experience on our property.
September 2009
| Number of days in month: | 30 |
| Number of evenings with noticeable wood smoke in the air: | 18 |
| Number of evenings with no wood smoke: | 12 |
| Number of days it rained when there was no wood smoke in the evening: | 3 |
| Number of evenings with no wood smoke and no rain: | 9 |
| Number of evenings of moderately strong wood smoke or higher: | 8 |
| Number of evenings with strong wood smoke: | 1 |
| Number of evenings with wood smoke before 11 PM: | 17 |
| Number of evenings with wood smoke after 11 PM: | 11 |
September was another smoky hell of a month with wood smoke in the air 60% of the evenings. There was very little rain this month. There were two days without wood smoke on the 10th and 21st when rain was in the weather forecast but it did not rain. On the 22nd and 23rd, we enjoyed two evenings with no wood smoke when it did not rain. The sky was cloudy gray both evenings. It looked like it could have rained on the 22nd, but no precipitation was in the forecast.
Cool temperatures of fall gave us a little benefit at the end of the month. We enjoyed an evening without wood smoke on the 30th when the temperature was in the 50s. The cool temperatures may have put a damper on recreational air pollution from bonfires, but it likely encouraged the use of fireplaces and wood burning stoves. On the 26th, there was faint to light wood smoke in the air by 10 AM when the temperature was 56 degrees, most likely from a fireplace. A very faint trace of some type of smoke was detectable almost all of the day until it got really smoky that evening. On the 29th, there was very faint wood smoke in the air around 11 PM when the temperature was in the low 40s.
On 9/09, we enjoyed our first evening without wood smoke in 20 days! We endured 19 consecutive evenings with wood smoke up until that day. From the 21st to the 23rd, we enjoyed three evenings in a row without wood smoke. That was our longest stretch of fresh air this month.
Three days of fresh air in a row is a blessing in this town.
August 2009
| Number of days in month: | 31 |
| Number of evenings with noticeable wood smoke in the air: | 21 |
| Number of evenings with no wood smoke: | 10 |
| Number of days it rained when there was no wood smoke in the evening: | 5 |
| Number of evenings with no wood smoke and no rain: | 5 |
| Number of evenings of moderately strong wood smoke or higher: | 7 |
| Number of evenings with strong wood smoke: | 2 |
| Number of evenings with wood smoke before 11 PM: | 20 |
| Number of evenings with wood smoke after 11 PM: | 16 |
August was another smoky hell of a month. We had wood smoke 21 out of 31 evenings in our area. It was smoky two-thirds of the evenings. Of the 10 evenings without wood smoke, we had rain before or during peak recreational burning time 5 of them. That makes a total of 5 evenings with no wood smoke and no rain. While 2 out of every 3 evenings had wood smoke, the intensity of the smoke was not as bad as it had been prior months. We had only 2 evenings with wood smoke I rated in the strong category compared to 8 in July.
There were two evenings, Aug. 9th and 12th, where there was a faint odor of something in the air that could not be identified. It is possible it could have been wood smoke from a source distant enough to cause the smoke to be very diluted. Since I could not tell it was wood smoke, I had to count the days as being smoke-free even though the air was not fresh.
Temperatures were not a deterrent to recreational air pollution in August as they were in June. Of the 5 days with no wood smoke and no rain, only Aug. 12th was warm and humid enough to possibly discourage recreational fires. It was 86 degrees and muggy that evening. The weekends of the 22nd and 29th were unseasonably cool to the point where people were likely using fireplaces. Evening temperatures were in the low 60s and below both weekends. The 22nd was the smokiest I have ever seen the city. Wood smoke was everywhere in the northern half of the city, thick enough to form clouds or hang close to the ground like a fog in several locations. From 5:15 PM on Saturday the 29th to 6:30 AM Monday the 31st, there was detectable wood smoke in the air. That made 37 hours of nearly continuous wood smoke with a very faint trace detectable all day long Sunday the 30th.
July 2009
| Number of days in month: | 31 |
| Number of evenings with noticeable wood smoke in the air: | 25 |
| Number of evenings with no wood smoke: | 6 |
| Number of days it rained when there was no wood smoke in the evening: | 4 |
| Number of evenings with no wood smoke and no rain: | 2 |
| Number of evenings of moderately strong wood smoke or higher: | 15 |
| Number of evenings with strong wood smoke: | 8 |
| Number of evenings with wood smoke before 11 PM: | 24 |
| Number of evenings with wood smoke after 11 PM: | 15 |
In July 2009, 25 out of 31 evenings had wood smoke. Out of the 6 days without wood smoke, it rained before or during burning time 4 of them. That makes 2 days in July where we had no wood smoke and no rain to account for its absence. About the only relief we get from wood smoke is the result of rain. That is how bad the wood smoke pollution is in this city. North St. Paul used to be a great place to live 10 years ago. Now it is a nightmare.
It should be quite apparent that North St. Paul, MN, is a living hell. The four city council members are to blame for this. All have been informed of this wood smoke problem and all four have refused to do anything about it. Why do they torture us?
I will tabulate the other months as I can.
June 2009
| Number of days in month: | 30 |
| Number of evenings with noticeable wood smoke in the air: | 18 |
| Number of evenings with no wood smoke: | 12 |
| Number of days it rained when there was no wood smoke in the evening: | 4 |
| Number of evenings with no wood smoke and no rain: | 8 |
| Number of evenings of moderately strong wood smoke or higher: | 10 |
| Number of evenings with strong wood smoke: | 5 |
| Number of evenings with wood smoke before 11 PM: | 17 |
| Number of evenings with wood smoke after 11 PM: | 9 |
The evenings of June 9th and 10th were were free of wood smoke pollution. The evening temperature was 62 degrees on the 9th and 59 degrees on the 10th. On June 17th, another evening without wood smoke, it did not rain but looked like it could rain at any time. Before midnight, lightning was in the sky.
The heat helped us on June 22nd and 23rd. The temperatures at around 5:30 PM were 93 degrees on the 22nd and 87 degrees on the 23rd, with the temperature rising above 87 later in the evening. Sitting around a hot fire isn't as appealing to the pyromaniacs in this town when temperatures get close to 90.
Without weather conditions acting as a deterrent, these five days would have likely been smoky as well, further reducing the few smoke-free days we got this month.
On June 3rd, we had a horrible surprise in the morning. Strong wood smoke at 5 AM lasting at least two hours until I left.
May 2009
| Number of days in month: | 31 |
| Number of evenings with noticeable wood smoke in the air: | 16 |
| Number of evenings with no wood smoke: | 15 |
| Number of days it rained when there was no wood smoke in the evening: | 7 |
| Number of evenings with no wood smoke and no rain: | 8 |
| Number of evenings of moderately strong wood smoke or higher: | 8 |
| Number of evenings with strong wood smoke: | 5 |
| Number of evenings with wood smoke before 11 PM: | 16 |
| Number of evenings with wood smoke after 11 PM: | 7 |
Weather conditions lessened the number of evenings of smoky air in May 2009. Rain and temperature extremes gave us a few smoke-free days. The evening temperatures fluctuated wildly with temperatures in the 40s such as on the 16th all the way up to around 90 degrees on the 19th and 20th. Recreational bonfires are not as common when the temperature is below 70 degrees or gets close to 90. There was rain before or during burning time seven days when there was no wood smoke. Without the rain, it would likely have been smoky those days as well. We had only eight days this month with no rain and wood smoke.
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