Superstition Mountains Gallery
To secure a representative gallery of observed air quality conditions for each scene monitoring site, a series of images are selected from the period of record and archived in several resolutions as an Image Gallery set.
The series of images making up the historical image gallery typically consists of:
The Superstition Mountains image images gallery was last updated in May 2004. Check this page again for future updates.
Image Spectrum
The following images have been selected to represent regional haze conditions corresponding to the Excellent to Very Poor categories of the Visibility Index Scale.
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Excellent
A clean December day with excellent visibility throughout the Phoenix monitoring region.
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Good
Typical good visibility day in February with a slight
milky appearance of regional haze over the Superstition Mountains
monitoring vista.
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Fair
Typical fair visibility day in October with a moderate
appearance of regional haze over the Superstition Mountains
monitoring vista.
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Poor
Poor visibility day in April with significant enough regional haze
throughout the Superstition Mountains monitoring vista that
the Superstition Mountains ridgeline is barely visible.
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Very Poor
Very poor visibility day in April with significant regional haze throughout the Superstition
Mountains monitoring vista. Note the Superstition Mountains ridgeline is no longer visible.
Seasonal Images
The following images are representative of pristine, scenic, or meteorological observances of interest.
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Pristine
December 16, 2003, 10:00 a.m.
Example of excellent visibility representative of the
Superstition Mountains monitoring vista.
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Pristine
December 16, 2003, 11:15 a.m.
Example of excellent visibility representative of the
Superstition Mountains monitoring vista.
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Pristine
December 16, 2003, 12:00 p.m.
Example of excellent visibility representative of the
Superstition Mountains monitoring vista.
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Pristine
December 16, 2003, 4:00 p.m.
Example of excellent visibility representative of the
Superstition Mountains monitoring vista.
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Scenic
October 1, 2003, 6:30 a.m.
Example of a typical morning sunrise for the Superstition
Mountains monitoring vista.
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Scenic
October 28, 2003, 6:15 a.m.
Example of an early morning skyline for the Superstition
Mountains monitoring vista.
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Scenic
January 3, 2004, 7:15 a.m.
Example of a typical morning sunrise for the Superstition
Mountains monitoring vista.
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Scenic
January 15, 2004, 3:45 p.m.
Example of a scenic day with good visibility for the Superstition
Mountains monitoring vista.
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Scenic
February 4, 2004, 5:45 p.m.
Example of a scenic day with good visibility for the Superstition
Mountains monitoring vista.
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Scenic
March 7, 2004, 7:45 p.m.
Scenic moon rise over the Superstition Mountains.
Unique Superstition Mountains "/images/gallery Images
The following images are representative of observed layered haze, regional haze, or pollution episodes of significant importance.
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Layered Haze
December 15, 2003, 8:00 a.m.
Representative ground-based layered haze impacting the
Phoenix metro region, as seen from the Superstition Mountains
monitoring vista, viewing 90° east.
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Layered Haze
January 29, 2004, 9:00 a.m..
Representative ground-based layered haze impacting the
Phoenix metro region, as seen from the Superstition Mountains
monitoring vista, viewing 90° east.
Layered Haze
October 11, 2003
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7:15 a.m.
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7:45 a.m.
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9:15 a.m.
A layered haze event impacted
visibility on October 11, 2003. The above morning Images depict
multiple layered hazes as seen from the Superstition Mountains
monitoring vista, viewing 90° east.
Layered Haze
December 2, 2003 through December 4, 2003
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December 2, 2003,
10:00 a.m.
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December 3, 2003,
10:00 a.m.
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December 4, 2003,
10:00 a.m.
Representative layered and regional
haze event that impacted morning visibility seen from both
the Estrella Mountains and Superstition Mountains (above)
Web cameras.
Layered Haze
March 7, 2004
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March 7, 2004,
7:30 a.m.
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March 7, 2004,
8:30 a.m.
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March 7, 2004,
9:30 a.m.
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March 7, 2004,
10:30 a.m.
A layered and regional haze event
occurred during the morning of March 7, 2004 that could be
observed from several Phoenix visibility Web cameras. Hourly
interval images depicting visibility as seen from the Superstition
Mountains monitoring vista are shown above.
Regional Haze
January 29, 2004 through January 30, 2004
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January 29, 2004,
8:00 a.m.
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January 29, 2004,
10:00 a.m.
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January 29, 2004,
12:00 p.m.
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January 29, 2004,
2:00 p.m.
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January 30, 2004,
8:00 a.m.
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January 30, 2004,
10:00 a.m.
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January 30, 2004,
12:00 p.m.
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January 30, 2004,
2:00 p.m.
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January 30, 2004,
4:00 p.m.
A representative regional haze
event occurred January 29 through 30, 2004 that could be seen
from several Phoenix visibility Web cameras. Images depicting
visibility as seen from the Superstition Mountains monitoring
vista, viewing 90° east are shown above
Regional Haze
April 20, 2004 through April 22, 2004
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April 20, 2004,
10:00 a.m.
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April 20, 2004,
2:00 p.m.
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April 21, 2004,
10:00 a.m.
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April 21, 2004,
2:00 p.m.
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April 22, 2004,
8:00 a.m.
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April 22, 2004,
10:00 a.m.
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April 22, 2004,
2:00 p.m.
A representative regional haze
event impacted visibility April 20 through April 22, 2004.
The above images depict visibility as seen from the Superstition
Mountains monitoring vista, viewing 90° east.
Pollution Episode
Blue River Complex Fire: July 13, 2003 through August 10, 2003
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July 29, 2003,
7:30 a.m.
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July 30, 2003,
7:30 a.m.
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July 31, 2003,
7:30 a.m.
The 18,575-acre Blue River Complex
fire included two lightning-caused fires and a blaze contained
in June. The fire was located over 200 miles east of Phoenix
and approximately 18 miles south of Alpine, Arizona. July
29 through 31, 2003 smoke and reduced visibility that was
observed from the Superstition Mountains Web camera during
the containment phase of the fire is depicted above.
Pollution Episode
Southern California Wildfire Impacts: October 26 through November 9, 2003
In October of 2003, Southern California experienced the most
devastating wildland fire disaster in state history. Over
750,000 acres burned. Smoke from the wildfires caused unhealthy
levels of particulate pollution in a large expanse of Southern
California and the Southwestern United States. Visibility
in the Phoenix region was noticeably impacted from October
26 through November 9, 2003.
Below are daily 9:30 a.m. images depicting visibility conditions
observed from the Superstition Mountains Web camera from October
26 through November 2, 2003.
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October 26, 2003,
9:30 a.m.
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October 27, 2003,
9:30 a.m.
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October 28, 2003,
9:30 a.m.
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>October 29, 2003,
9:30 a.m.
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October 30, 2003,
9:30 a.m.
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October 31, 2003,
9:30 a.m.
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November 1, 2003,
9:30 a.m.
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November 2, 2003,
9:30 a.m.
Below are daily 5:15 p.m. images depicting
visibility conditions observed from the Superstition Mountains
Web camera from October 30 through November 10, 2003.
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October 30, 2003,
5:15 p.m.
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October 31, 2003,
5:15 p.m.
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November 1, 2003,
5:15 p.m.
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November 2, 2003,
5:15 p.m.
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November 3, 2003,
5:15 p.m.
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November 4, 2003,
5:15 p.m.
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November 5, 2003,
5:15 p.m.
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November 6, 2003,
5:15 p.m.
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November 7, 2003,
5:15 p.m.
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November 8, 2003,
5:15 p.m.
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November 9, 2003,
5:15 p.m.
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November 10, 2003,
5:15 p.m.