Chiang Mai Air Quality and Pollution

[KhunLA]

On 2/17/2022 at 10:14 PM, JimmyJ said:

In Da Nang I have seen zeros periodically, and single digits often.

 

"So is 50 [safe]...".

 

"Good" is different than "safe".

 

" ...little or no risk".

"little risk" is different than safe.

 

"No risk" at 50 but 51 is "moderate health concern for a small number of people...".

Nonsensical.

 

Read WHO and the EPA's description of the green zone.

 

It is a weasle word salad.

Depends if referring to AQI or PM2.5 #s.  and source of #s, govt or private meter & exact location. 

 

 

[Thailand]

2 hours ago, jvs said:

Same as every year and the same talk as every year will follow along with the same action

as every year.

Nothing.

Be fair, each year the amount of "nothing" increases exponentially.

[DezLez]

I do wish that people "reporting" on Chiang Mai air pollution would state if they are in the city or which area of the Province they are when they personally experience it and to what degree. 

 

Posting Screenshots of some unknown site is not exactly the most credible or accurate source of information. 

 

[Thailand]

1 hour ago, DezLez said:

I do wish that people "reporting" on Chiang Mai air pollution would state if they are in the city or which area of the Province they are when they personally experience it and to what degree. 

 

Posting Screenshots of some unknown site is not exactly the most credible or accurate source of information. 

 

 

[Will B Good]

2 minutes ago, Thailand said:

It's the Chiang Mai forum to give you the first clue and the screenshots relate to Chiang Mai also, another clue for you.

Don't give the game away.

[DezLez]

3 minutes ago, Thailand said:

It's the Chiang Mai forum to give you the first clue and the screenshots relate to Chiang Mai also, another clue for you.

Chiang Mai is both a city and a large Province in case you may have not noticed.  I actually used both the words "City" and "Province" in my post above!

 

The screenshot gives no detail as to where in Chiang Mai "City" or "Province" it is referring  and it does not provide a clear link as the the screenshot source or provenance.

[DezLez]

10 minutes ago, Will B Good said:

Don't give the game away.

So you think "Pollution" is a game do you?

 

All I am asking for is "accurate" information to be posted by people who actually experience the pollution wrt location and actual observations, not some computer generated screenshot from a remote outstation next to a paddy field that no tourist or city inhabitant is going to go near.

[Thailand]

 

https://aqicn.org/city/chiang-mai/  Just click on the numbers for location.

 

And currently.

 

 

[Rimmer]

A flame has been removed from a post and now a reply for when it was still up.

[JimmyJ]

6 hours ago, KhunLA said:

Depends if referring to AQI or PM2.5 #s.  and source of #s, govt or private meter & exact location. 

 

 

The numbers you refer to were discussing pm2.5 numbers, as is clear from the posts on the previous page.

 

My numbers from my private meter.

[DezLez]

34 minutes ago, Thailand said:

 

https://aqicn.org/city/chiang-mai/  Just click on the numbers for location.

 

And currently.

 

 

So you are showing a large headline figure of "107" which in small print means it is at the bottom end of the "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups" range!

Why make the post without a constructive comment as to where it was taken and what the impact of the figure means to the average person-not the "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups" range?

 

I am quite sure that those in the "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups" range are fully aware of their situation!

[Tarteso]

1 hour ago, DezLez said:

So you think "Pollution" is a game do you?

 

All I am asking for is "accurate" information to be posted by people who actually experience the pollution wrt location and actual observations, not some computer generated screenshot from a remote outstation next to a paddy field that no tourist or city inhabitant is going to go near.

Mae Taeng Nga Dam,  Sirilana Lake and National Park. Chiang Mai’s lung and Turist destination… at this moment;

[chaila]

On 2/28/2022 at 5:35 PM, DezLez said:

So you think "Pollution" is a game do you?

 

All I am asking for is "accurate" information to be posted by people who actually experience the pollution wrt location and actual observations, not some computer generated screenshot from a remote outstation next to a paddy field that no tourist or city inhabitant is going to go near.

I live next to 7 eleven    and the pollution is very bad here !!!!

[Rimmer]

Some off topic bickering posts and replies have been removed

[Rimmer]

 

[sammieuk1]

After 12 years involuntaraly vaping these CM toxins so glad I got me and my family out ????

[Tarteso]

1 hour ago, sammieuk1 said:

After 12 years involuntaraly vaping these CM toxins so glad I got me and my family out ????

 

1 hour ago, sammieuk1 said:

After 12 years involuntaraly vaping these CM toxins so glad I got me and my family out ????

Those bureaucrats, lazy, ignorant, Indolent for the Environment and their Generals should be outside, not you.

[JimmyJ]

Yesterday my pm2.5 device showed between 0 and 3.

This morning was seeing 2 to 3.

[JimmyJ]

This morning about 11 am pm2.5  was 14, so already edged back to the next (yellow) level.

 

Currently seeing 31 to 36, 36 being the beginning of the 3rd (orange) level.

 

Too bad.

I was fantasizing that there would be an early end to the bad AQI, but it's advancing back up.

 

[JimmyJ]

And today reaching into the "Very Unhealthy" purple zone - pm2.5 of 151 and higher/AQI 201 and higher.

 

Awful!

[DezLez]

28 minutes ago, JimmyJ said:

And today reaching into the "Very Unhealthy" purple zone - pm2.5 of 151 and higher/AQI 201 and higher.

 

Awful!

Where exactly in the world are you personnally experiancing this "figure" and how are you measuring/reading it it?

I am intruiged given the heavy rains in CM  City in the last two days!!

[CMBob]

My app - IQ Air - currently (12:30AM) shows 163 which is an average of many monitors in and very near Chiangmai.  Here's a partial screen shot of just some of those monitoring stations:

[Tarteso]

Mae Rim the worst 

[JimmyJ]

SNDWAY SW-825 in CM city - 

currently showing pm2.5 122 to 132.

Equals AQI 185 to 190.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

I skimmed through the posts from the last month or two and a couple things may be good to note. 

 

But first up the current conditions, which are pretty bad everywhere in the region.  (If people "left Chiang Mai because of the smog" and went to Pattaya or Hua Hin by the sea, then they will have had worse air this year than Chiang Mai.  So if relocating, make it Phuket, Samui and all those places very far South.)

 

 

It's a regional problem, not a Chiang Mai problem specifically. This is only now becoming apparent because Chiang Mai has had better awareness of the issue and many more measuring stations, going back many years.   For locations in the North East they only got scientific air quality stations 1-2 years ago, so we're only just collecting data.

Another question: where does this come from.. it's a little puzzling; the North currently has very few major fires.  The new governor of Chiang Mai has done a fantastic job to bring the burning ban forward to start already in January; I think that contributed a lot to the fantastic January and February we had.   (Having the best March in the past decade is also/mostly due to climatic conditions.)

Maybe in summary on burning bans:  they work very well to control residential and agricultural burning, as farmland is mostly flat and feasible to police.  For forest fires in the mountains: not so much.  And setting fries in (mostly protected) forests is already illegal year round of course.

 

But anyway, right now the fire map looks like this: 

 

 

Note the almost complete absence of major fires in Northern Thailand.  While Laos seems to be busy setting their whole country on fire.  Very fine dust (PM2.5) can travel long distances so with a change of weather it's possible that all that <deleted> now covers Thailand.

And speaking of weather, this week we've again seen that having a lot of rain doesn't by itself clear the air.  The current smog conditions started immediately after a very major period of rain.  It seems this way because rain often accompanies a change in wind direction, and that will definitely impact pollution levels. 

 

Overall, let's not lose sight of the good news; also with a current spell into the red (daily value, old city), this has been the best dry season in a decade, by some distance.  In green below we see the current year. The gray line is the 10 year average.  Numbers are the actual PM2.5 data in micrograms per cubic meter, so it's not an AQI number. Data is for the old city area in Chiang Mai.

 

 

 

 

 

  

[JimmyJ]

22 minutes ago, WinnieTheKhwai said:

I skimmed through the posts from the last month or two and a couple things may be good to note. 

 

But first up the current conditions, which are pretty bad everywhere in the region.  (If people "left Chiang Mai because of the smog" and went to Pattaya or Hua Hin by the sea, then they will have had worse air this year than Chiang Mai.  So if relocating, make it Phuket, Samui and all those places very far South.)

 

 

It's a regional problem, not a Chiang Mai problem specifically. This is only now becoming apparent because Chiang Mai has had better awareness of the issue and many more measuring stations, going back many years.   For locations in the North East they only got scientific air quality stations 1-2 years ago, so we're only just collecting data.

Another question: where does this come from.. it's a little puzzling; the North currently has very few major fires.  The new governor of Chiang Mai has done a fantastic job to bring the burning ban forward to start already in January; I think that contributed a lot to the fantastic January and February we had.   (Having the best March in the past decade is also/mostly due to climatic conditions.)

Maybe in summary on burning bans:  they work very well to control residential and agricultural burning, as farmland is mostly flat and feasible to police.  For forest fires in the mountains: not so much.  And setting fries in (mostly protected) forests is already illegal year round of course.

 

But anyway, right now the fire map looks like this: 

 

 

Note the almost complete absence of major fires in Northern Thailand.  While Laos seems to be busy setting their whole country on fire.  Very fine dust (PM2.5) can travel long distances so with a change of weather it's possible that all that <deleted> now covers Thailand.

And speaking of weather, this week we've again seen that having a lot of rain doesn't by itself clear the air.  The current smog conditions started immediately after a very major period of rain.  It seems this way because rain often accompanies a change in wind direction, and that will definitely impact pollution levels. 

 

Overall, let's not lose sight of the good news; also with a current spell into the red (daily value, old city), this has been the best dry season in a decade, by some distance.  In green below we see the current year. The gray line is the 10 year average.  Numbers are the actual PM2.5 data in micrograms per cubic meter, so it's not an AQI number. Data is for the old city area in Chiang Mai.

 

 

 

 

 

  

Pm 2.5 for CM Old City has been (just barely) above 50 - 2 times in 2022?

(Each of the 2 times the line went over 50 pm2.5 could represent a bit more than 1 day each).

 

Where did the chart come from?

Link?

 

 

[Iamfalang]

It will get better next year.  The YouTubers tell me it’s perfect….everything perfect.   Decades of death….but next year will be the best.   It’s only Smokey for 7 months a year…..kids love it!  
 

money talks, BS stays.   Have money, save yourself.   No money, say goodbye to your lungs.  
 

don’t worry, it’s worth it!   Imagine all the noodle soup you can enjoy for 30 baht as your brain and lungs perish……….   Escape if you can.   

[Forza2002]

Looks like our great AQI was to good to last. Terrible day today, I was getting a PM2.5 reading on my portable meter of 92 inside the house this morning... https://www.iqair.com/th-en/thailand/chiang-mai

[Thailand]

If the governor was able to control the weather and bring the unseasonal rain to keep the smog mostly manageable then he has done a good job.

Other than that banning burning has had little or no effect over the years as nothing is ever enforced.

 

But yes, today is extra grotty!

 

And for Thailand info:

https://aqicn.org/map/thailand/

[JimmyJ]

"Unsafe PM2.5 Reported in 49 Provinces"

 

https://tna.mcot.net/english-news-921120