What’s with Utah’s wet campfire smell? Rainstorms brought West Coast smoke with them.

File photo by Ritthichai/iStock / Getty Images Plus, St. George News

ST. GEORGE — All the rain that’s fallen on Utah in the past couple of days didn’t leave the state smelling fresh and clean — it left it smelling like a wet campfire.

There are a couple of reasons for that, according to the National Weather Service. First, the storm system brought the smoke with it.

And, second, smoke from summer wildfires is different than winter inversion pollution.

“It has a very similar impact in terms of visibility and kind of gross air quality, but they don’t work in the same way,” said David Church, lead meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Salt Lake City office. “This is a different phenomenon.”

The smoke currently plaguing Utah is from fires in California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. “There’s been a very large number of very large wildfires across the West,” he said. “So there’s just an incredible amount of smoke swirling around.”

Read the full story here: SLTrib.com.

Written by SCOTT D. PIERCE, The Salt Lake Tribune.

This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aims to inform readers across the state.

Copyright © The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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