For the past 2-3 days, the air has been pretty bad... especially in the morning. In my five years of living here, I have never seen the air bad during this time of the year. (Although it's not nearly as smokey as it gets in Feb/March)

The rice is half-way through its growing season so farmers are not burning their fields. Does anyone know why it's been so bad lately?

This doesn't explain it but here is news on it.

Chiang Mai hit by smog for five consecutive days

Chiang Mai - Chiang Mai has been hit by smog and has dangerous tiny dust particles higher than safety standard for five consecutive days, the provincial pollution control office said Sunday.

The office's three air quality measuring stations found that the province had particle pollution, which is less than 10 micrometers in diameter (PM10) higher than the safety standard of 120 microgrammes per a cubic metre of air for five consecutive days.

The station at the provincial hall Sunday recorded the lelvel of PM10 particle at 168.4 microgrammes per a cubic metre of air.

The level of PM10 particle was recorded at 208.0 microgrammes at the Yupparaj Withayalai School in Muang district and at 130.4 at the Phuping Palace.

-- The Nation 30 Sept 2009

Source: The Nation

This doesn't explain it but here is news on it.

Chiang Mai hit by smog for five consecutive days

Chiang Mai - Chiang Mai has been hit by smog and has dangerous tiny dust particles higher than safety standard for five consecutive days, the provincial pollution control office said Sunday.

The office's three air quality measuring stations found that the province had particle pollution, which is less than 10 micrometers in diameter (PM10) higher than the safety standard of 120 microgrammes per a cubic metre of air for five consecutive days.

The station at the provincial hall Sunday recorded the lelvel of PM10 particle at 168.4 microgrammes per a cubic metre of air.

The level of PM10 particle was recorded at 208.0 microgrammes at the Yupparaj Withayalai School in Muang district and at 130.4 at the Phuping Palace.

-- The Nation 30 Sept 2009

Source: The Nation

Thanks, but how do those numbers correlate to the graph?

So thats what it is..... I have had itchy eyes for the past few days..... so bad in fact that for the 1st time in about 20 years I went out and bought eye drops

thanks guys....... I had just chalked it up to old age...... o boy now I'm young again

G

Who the Nation's source is (and what he had been drinking ) is anybody's guess. What he is saying is however in direct contravention of the data the Pollution Control Department has been publishing on its website. Here are the graphs for Chiang Mai (the City Hall site), Uparaj College (downtown) and, for good measure, Lumpoon and Lampang:

Over the years, the observations from these four stations tend to move in the same directions (i.e. correlate), though the levels may of course be different.

I don't know, but I can imagine that one would notice the 42.7 microgrammes recorded on Saturday and possibly the 34.7 from yesterday, since these concentrations are about twice what we have been used to for the last few months (42.7 is in fact the highest value since May 9^th). The contrast would make things seem much worse than they really have been. Either the article is just made up to fill a couple of inches on a page, or the source at PCD happened to look up the wrong pages, or the wrong sites.

According to the PCD website, there are no measurements from the mobile station (which is sometimes placed at the Phuping Palace) since 29 May 2009.

I may of course be wrong, but based on long experience of the two sources my conclusion is that the PCD website is correct and the Nation is wrong

/ Priceless

PS I think I have found the answer! The numbers quoted are the values for Chiang Mai, Uparaj and Phuping Palace for 8 March 2009

PS I think I have found the answer! The numbers quoted are the values for Chiang Mai, Uparaj and Phuping Palace for 8 March 2009

I spent a bit of time trying to verify the date of that article other then the "updated since" at the top of the page because I didn't fully trust it plus it was under breaking news. Was sure you would come along and point out any discrepancies. Bit frustrating that they don't date stamp each article.

PS I think I have found the answer! The numbers quoted are the values for Chiang Mai, Uparaj and Phuping Palace for 8 March 2009

I spent a bit of time trying to verify the date of that article other then the "updated since" at the top of the page because I didn't fully trust it plus it was under breaking news. Was sure you would come along and point out any discrepancies. Bit frustrating that they don't date stamp each article.

Yes, it's worth noting that Bangkok post (that at least attempts being a proper news medium) does stamp all articles with date and time. Yet another reason to avoid the Nation

/ Priceless

I noticed it was (unusually) hazy up here today too but didn't see any fires.