The Indiana Department of Environmental Management is predicting worse air quality in Indiana again Wednesday. The agency already issued an air quality action day on Tuesday.
With temperature forecasts in the 90s until Saturday, it’s likely poor air quality will continue for most of the week.
This means children, seniors and anyone with a heart or lung condition should avoid strenuous work or outside exercise.
IDEM said hot weather and pollution from things like cars and factories creates more ground-level ozone. That can make it more difficult to breathe and cause coughing.
People can help reduce ground-level ozone by walking, biking, or working from home. If you do have to drive your car, IDEM said make fewer trips and turn off your engine if you’re idling for more than 30 seconds.
You can also set your thermostat to higher than 75 degrees.
Counties affected by the air quality advisory are: Allen, Bartholomew, Boone, Brown, Carroll, Clark, Daviess, Delaware, Dubois, Elkhart, Floyd, Gibson, Greene, Hamilton, Hendricks, Howard, Huntington, Knox, Lake, LaPorte, Madison, Marion, Perry, Pike, Porter, Posey, Shelby, Spencer, St. Joseph, Tippecanoe, Vanderburgh, Vigo, Wabash and Warrick.
This story has been updated.
Contact reporter Rebecca at rthiele@iu.edu or follow her on Twitter at @beckythiele.
Indiana Environmental reporting is supported by the Environmental Resilience Institute, an Indiana University Grand Challenge project developing Indiana-specific projections and informed responses to problems of environmental change.
