Cause Of Natural Gas Odor In Charlotte Explained

If you stepped outside your home and caught wind of a strange, smelly odor in the air, you're not alone. Many people around Charlotte reported smelling a natural gas odor on Thursday (July 14), sparking speculation of a potential gas leak. Now, the cause of the odor has been revealed, and no, it wasn't from a gas leak or a nearby dumpster.

Residents from Uptown to South End and NoDa reported an odor of rotten eggs on Thursday morning, which Piedmont Natural Gas confirmed was the result of a mercaptan leak, a strong-smelling additive added to odorless natural gas that makes a leak easier to detect, per WCNC.

Mercaptan tanks were mistakenly reported as empty and destroyed by an environmental company near Uptown, releasing the odor across areas of the city. While it may have resembled a gas leak, it wasn't. Piedmont officials said the additive doesn't pose a threat.

According to a meteorologist with WCNC, the odor was made even more pungent thanks to a weather phenomenon called inversion, a layer of warm, dense air that can trap pollution, smoke and even smells beneath it and make it take longer for each to dissipate.

Given the strange incident, many people around the city took to Twitter to both get information about the smell and to make jokes. Check out the tweets below to see what some people around Charlotte were saying.