The air has finally cleared… unlike my schedule… so just a brief note before tomorrow’s numbers come out, because I am going to enjoy the usually-taken-for-granted crisp, fresh air.
The AQI at the moment is 18, which is exactly what it was before the fires, and about as good as it gets. For a week, it was fluctuating between 150 and 225, which is labelled Unhealthy at best, Very Unhealthy at worst. And to be clear, this only means our problem has gone away (for the moment) … the AQI is 450 in some parts of California. Anything above 300 is labelled Hazardous, as in don’t breathe the air outside or you’ll likely get sick.
Not like there isn’t enough to occupy your time on the internet… but waqi.info is an interesting site. A world map of AQIs, and you can hover and zoom around easily. At a glance, you’ll quickly notice (as I have over the last week) that many places around the world are perpetually stuck with bad air. Parts of Brazil, India… and, of course, China.
It's good site to check out next time it’s pouring rain and you’re stuck at home… for two reasons. One to see that it could be a lot worse, and two to remind us how fortunate we are to live in a part of the world where the air scrubs itself. I wish my schedule could do the same.
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I found a sensor just a few hundred meters down the road on purpleair .com so I’ve been using that one for “my” AQI, in addition to the one I have inside the apartment. Ours was over 400 last Monday due to the pier fire. Woke up thinking I had sacked out in the back of a Kal Tire in the middle of the night… and that was with the purifier running on high.
just looked at that website: British COMLUMBIA?
I was going off the other day about the use of the 1-10 scale for air quality being used by the BC government. The AQI is a much better way to convey the data.
I think it is completely useless to say the air quality is “10+” for days on end. I was like 10+ what? If the AQI is 150 I’ll go to the store, if it’s 250 I’m going to stay inside. Where is 10 on the AQI scale? /rant