There were several calls/emails to our newsroom yesterday afternoon about an iritating, oily smell in the air along the coast. Personally, I didn't notice this. But our morning anchor, Lindsay, says she did in Cape Coral.. so it seems the closer you got to the Gulf, the more prominent the odor was. Reports of the oily smell were also made in the Tampa area per the National Weather Service.
So what gives? Our best guess at this point is the odor was a result of a shift in the wind helping to loft some of the oily smell from the rig explosion SE of New Orleans in our direction (abou 450 miles away). Above I've included a map of the location of the oil slick and surface streamlines -- the direction the wind is blowing in the Gulf and you can see that the wind blows across the oil slick and straight toward the SWFL coast. That said, without the presence of what we call a low level inversion (a "lid" that traps particulates, etc., near the ground).. it's hard to imagine such a relatively small oil slick producing such an irritating smell in SWFL yesterday. Bottom line? The case isn't closed on this... but this is our best guess!
Brian
