"I will be content with the smell."

January 8, 2015 9:55 AM

University of Washington meteorologist Cliff Mass offers a hypothesis about an inversion fog event that brought Seattle various unpleasant smells yesterday
posted by a lungful of dragon (25 comments total)

For a minute I thought I was reading a proposed Portlandia script
posted by surazal at 10:06 AM on January 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

@lungful of dragon: eponysterical!
posted by Mr. Justice at 10:08 AM on January 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

Shoot, this is every morning in port/industrial areas (like the one where I live).
posted by resurrexit at 10:15 AM on January 8, 2015

When I first heard about this I missed the location and immediately thought, "Bogalusa?"
posted by djeo at 10:19 AM on January 8, 2015

The Poop-Fog Phenomenon is the name of my new math-rock band.
posted by jbickers at 10:20 AM on January 8, 2015 [5 favorites]

So the lesson here is we should be thankful we don't have to deal with the smells we make.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 10:21 AM on January 8, 2015

Dilution is the solution to whoever farted.
posted by backseatpilot at 10:34 AM on January 8, 2015

Seattle: U Stink But I Love U.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 10:34 AM on January 8, 2015 [3 favorites]

Where is your Bill Gates now?
posted by hal9k at 10:53 AM on January 8, 2015

Meh. I used to work in Oxnard, including the month the local mushroom farm caught fire. You don't EVEN know bad smelling air.
posted by happyroach at 11:07 AM on January 8, 2015

Brad Ginn said...
I've had 4 different people comment to me since yesterday about the aroma in Poulsbo. Three said it smelled like a pulp mill, one said it was cow manure.

I think this bolsters Mass' flooded farmland theory, because what are cows, if not self-directed, sub-miniature pulp mills?
posted by jamjam at 11:08 AM on January 8, 2015

Meh. I used to work in Oxnard, including the month the local mushroom farm caught fire. You don't EVEN know bad smelling air.

Yeah, I live down in Lacey by a mushroom farm. When I post on Facebook, it says I'm near Mushroom Corner. I've never seen it but I can sure as shit smell it.
posted by A Bad Catholic at 11:21 AM on January 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

Having just created a username, I'm now kind of sad that I had not run across the term "stink fog"earlier.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:30 AM on January 8, 2015 [2 favorites]

I was in Tacoma when this hit and was like "The Tacoma Aroma is not a lie!"
posted by corb at 11:50 AM on January 8, 2015 [5 favorites]

Milpitas, CA also has a lingering stink problem. (I work in Milpitas; it varies, but yesterday was particularly nasty probably because we too were under an inversion.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:21 PM on January 8, 2015

Meh. I used to work in Oxnard, including the month the local mushroom farm caught fire. You don't EVEN know bad smelling air.

I used to make trips through Delaware, where the stench of highway-side refineries, pig farms and mountainous landfills would go for miles and miles and miles...
posted by a lungful of dragon at 12:26 PM on January 8, 2015

Wow. I picked the perfect day to get on a plane and leave Seattle for a week, evidently.
posted by egypturnash at 12:35 PM on January 8, 2015

Sealy, Texas. I think it's sulfurous natural gas leaking. Smells like CaCa 24/7/365.
posted by bukvich at 12:37 PM on January 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

I live down the road from a research farm that has a lot of horses, who make a lot of manure. There really is an interesting (and stinky) phenomenon in the spring when the fields are thawing out and the meltwater percolates through the layer of horse apples and grass stubble that had been fermenting slowly under the snow for months. The smell is distinctive, rank, and everywhere. So I'd say Cliff Mass' theory is very plausible, and also sympathize with the people of Seattle.
posted by traveler_ at 2:49 PM on January 8, 2015

I used to work at a weather office that was just northwest of giant cattle feedlots. When the winds shifted to the southeast, we could have wrote "shitting winds" in our forecast discussions and just claimed it was a typo. It would be a more accurate description.
posted by weathergal at 3:00 PM on January 8, 2015

Corb beat me to it... This was just Tacoma feeling expansive.
posted by spitbull at 3:06 PM on January 8, 2015 [3 favorites]

Weird. I'm on Queen Anne, and all I got was the smell of the ocean. It was a lovely call back to the marine layers of my youth in San Diego.
posted by Existential Dread at 3:14 PM on January 8, 2015

Yet another reason for my Midwest relatives to question my sanity re: moving to Washington State:

Earthquakes
Volcanoes
And now, poop fog!
posted by spinifex23 at 3:56 PM on January 8, 2015

On a day when there's plenty of cause to question anyone's sanity for staying in the Midwest.
posted by wotsac at 4:19 PM on January 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

Cliff Mass has an update this evening. Apparently the smell is spreading around (Victoria BC, Lopez Island, etc.).
posted by AllieTessKipp at 10:55 PM on January 9, 2015