It’s also why Los Angeles is so notorious for poor air quality and it gets worse in the summer. You have:
1. High pressure parked permanently over the region in summer
2. Stable ocean air (an inversion) that is strongest in the warm season
3. Strong sunlight (for photochemical reactions)
4. Mountains blocking winds from blowing it away
5. Reliable daytime onshore breezes and nighttime offshore breezes keep sweeping it back and forth over the basin from the coast to the mountains
And voila, smog.
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