AQI

Until a week ago, I had no idea what an "AQI" was.

Then we -- here in Seattle -- began feeling the effects of the great fires that were consuming California and Oregon.  A massive "pall of smoke," as journalists put it, had drifted out over the Pacific from those fires, and was now redirecting itself toward the northern Oregon and Washington coasts.

Suddenly, all we talked about was AQI.  When we weren't talking about Covid-19.

When I first saw the initials, I had to look up their meaning.  Our normally fresh Seattle air was suddenly thick with smoke, and the newspapers and on-line news and weather sources were full of current information on our AQI -- which I discovered meant "Air Quality Index."

Over the past weekend, Seattle's AQI swiftly rose to figures above 250 ("Very Unhealthy") and even above 300 ("Hazardous").  We were warned to stay indoors.  We were urged to construct indoor room purifiers out of various components that the articles seemed to assume we all had lying round the house.  (Like building an emergency vehicle out of your discarded carburetors and fuel pumps, plus any unused tires.)  I don't have asthma or chronic pulmonary problems, so I satisfied myself with staying indoors, hoping the lethal smoke wasn't slipping in through various cracks.

But I won't bore you with my subjective horror at confronting yet another existential crisis.  I'm simply interested in noting how quickly we all became conversant with AQIs, and the restrictions imposed on us by various levels of AQI.

My phone's weather app for Seattle gave both the current AQI, and the level of severity it represented. But I quickly discovered that no single reading of AQI fit the entire city.  The AQIs were more granular, differing greatly from neighborhood to neighborhood, and readings of some of these more specific AQIs could be found on-line.  Apparently, no sampling station exists in my Montlake neighborhood, but there was a station reporting from East Olive Street, a street that I pass on one of my daily walks.  I figured that was close enough, and set my phone to report the E. Olive numbers.

The "pall of smoke" hung over Seattle longer than originally forecast, meaning that I spent a week repeatedly checking my phone.  When the level first reached "Unhealthy," I cautiously stopped going for daily walks.  I sat in my dark house, watching as the level crept up to "Very Unhealthy," and even "Hazardous" at some nearby locations, although not (so far as I observed) at E. Olive.  You won't be surprised, knowing human nature, that when the level dropped down to merely "Unhealthy" again, I felt a great surge of gratitude.  I immediately went out for a fairly long walk.

The numbers kept dropping on Wednesday, and by Thursday had dropped into the category of "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups," (AQI between 101 and 150), which smelled like a happy day on a mountain top.  Yesterday, the first sprinkles began, and we dropped to "Moderate."  We had a good rainfall last night, and this morning, the AQI reading at E. Olive was an unbelievable 9 -- a rating of "Good," where "Good" means 0 to 50.  It has been "Good" all day today, and remains at 12 while I write this.  

I'm planning to forget as quickly as possible the AQI scale and its health implications.  I suspect, however, given the lack of interest of the government in combatting global warming, that it will be a critical set of numbers for us all in the future, and even more critical for the generations to come.