2025 ozone season sees mild start

A full ozone season outlook was presented at the April Air Quality Forum.

“Like typical seasons, June-August will be our peak of ozone alert day potential,” said Sullivan Brown, Weather or Not weather operations manager. “We will be watching where the ridge caused by the summer high pressure centered in the southwest meets the low pressure formed in the southeast. West of that inflection point, we will have above average temperatures with lots of sun."

Brown added that dry conditions will persist more often than not, as well, increasing drought concerns locally May-July. 

"While the heart of the season will be June into August, we cannot rule out alerts in May with a milder/drier pattern," Brown said. "Once we get through mid- to late-summer, the pattern will quickly break sometime in August and last through October. The ridge dominating our weather will weaken and shift westward with cooler conditions and a potentially active pattern taking shape. Once this happens, green and a few yellow days become a more likely outcome.”

Brown said the chances are that the Kansas City region will have to wait until the end of summer to see cooler temperatures and a more active pattern. He said this will transition the ozone season, but rain will help “clean” the air quality out when we do have storms occasionally moving through during the summer.