what is wrong with the air now?

For the record, this is what's going on in air quality around here according to the EPA:

...Several questions from around Arizona have come in concerning the unusual haziness across the Phoenix forecast area. There haven't been any major winds in the past several days and it's been less than a week since our last "major" rain. So what's going on? A deeper look into the situation uncovers a possible phenomenon that occurs every now and then known as an Asian Dust event. Every so often a large dust storm rolls off the coast of China, most often originating in the Mongolian Desert. This dust cloud is transported across the Pacific Ocean and sweeps through the western U.S. This particular event made landfall Thursday in Baja, Mexico and southern California (http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/FIRE/DATA/SMOKE/2011D150314.html). Friday's report has this haze spreading as far east as New Mexico and western Texas.... According [to] the current monitored air quality levels, there are no health concerns at the surface associated to this upper-level dust event....

So EIs definitely feel this kind of event, and husband wondered yesterday if normies felt it, too, but didn't know any better. He had some errands to run and observed that people in general seemed kind of cranky and preoccupied.