Claim – Huge Ozone Hole Over Illinois and It’s Not Just Chicago

I normally let experts handle issues involving earth science. That's one reason I was a little alarmed when I saw "experts" talking about ozone problems over Illinois and they surprisingly weren't talking about just the Chicago area for once.

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MSN just shared the top 50 cities in America where the ozone is a problem. They specifically were focused on 4 specific areas:

- Annual average of unhealthy ozone days
- Unhealthy ozone days
- Total unhealthy ozone days
- Annual average of unhealthy ozone days

Some of their metrics only covered the past 3 years or so while the last category covered more than a decade of data.

What Illinois city has a big ozone problem?

The MSN article says it's Peoria. Peoria's annual unhealthy ozone days were 42nd highest in America and overall the city ranked as the 49th worst in the country.

But wait, Chicago isn't totally off the hook either.

The Windy City ranks as 13th worst place in America for ozone quality.

I have to confess that I was shocked to see Palm Springs, California as the #1 worst place in America for ozone quality. I always think of sunshine and roses there. Just goes to show how wrong our perceptions can be.