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Comment by ryannevius | Hacker News Reader

AirVisual's global air quality map provides some perspective: https://www.airvisual.com/earth?nav

Much of Southeast Asia and Africa are about to enter "burning season," so AQI will soon spike in these regions.

Kind of unrelated to the topic, but does anyone know what the big spot of bad air quality near Houston is?

There was a condenser explosion at a refinery outside Beaumont this week (edit: TPC group refinery in Port Neches, Wed thru Thanksgiving morning. Primarily 1,3-butadiene). Probably related, either directly or because of surplus burn off.

https://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/nation/2019/11/28...

Worth checking it out just for the video.

Edit: Yep- they reinstated the evacuation order yesterday and canceled school for the week, after attempting to resume classes on Tuesday.

https://m.chron.com/news/article/Shelter-in-place-order-issu...

"The first explosion around 1 a.m. Wednesday sent three workers to hospitals – they were treated and released that day – and blew out windows and doors in homes and businesses for miles. At least five residents were injured, mostly by shattered glass."

It's 5 hours later, so the data may be different but the largest red blob I see right now is in the region of the Gulf Coast near Corpus Christi. Since it's showing PM 2.5 readings, I suppose it could be a strong offshore wind picking up dust/sand from the long barrier island there.

Saw that too and am curious as well. Uneducated guess is either fires or refineries.

The dark red blob in Texas is basically San Antonio.

Why is San Antonio (and Seattle?!) so bad? Also central Africa.

Wow check out how bad Sydney is, likely worsened by the terrible fires burning in NSW

I just got home and its raining burnt leaves. And I'm not even that close to the fires.

Geez, doesn’t sound at all pleasant. Out of interest is the air noticeable different to smell and does it cause hay fever / asthma like symptoms?

It smells! Gets into clothes etc. so they smell to. Smells like something is on fire nearby even though the fire might be 50km or 100km away. Been a while since I’ve seen the sun shining properly. Welcome to 21st century, this shit just getting started.

Last night's moon was a fully saturated red colour in the suburbs at the Northern edge of Sydney, whilst high in the sky, just like the colour red you would get on a computer monitor. More spectacular than a lunar eclipse, as there was no shadow, and weird in that it was a crescent rather than being full. Of a night you can see the flames shining over the distant horizon. 5th day of summer, 85 to go. "Fun" times ahead.

It actually smells nice, IMO. A nice woodfire smokey smell. Not at all like the polluted mega-cities in China and the rest of Asia which has a chemical tinge to it.

Of course, that doesn't mean it's healthy. And it is getting a bit old after around 3 weeks of this.

It smells like I'm near a campfire! Also, I luckily don't get those.

Looks like India has the worst as far as I saw. Some areas above 400(!). For reference, Sydney is mid to upper 100’s which is still not good and likely as you mentioned fire related.

A more barebones earth map that can show PM2.5m as well.

https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/particulates/surface/l...

AirVisual is great. I'm checking it regularly. Considering to get one of the air quality monitors myself to get even more reliable data. We do need to move to more green energy soon as it's not looking good.

Johannesburg appears twice here https://www.airvisual.com/world-air-quality-ranking

Jesus, what's going on in India and China?

They've been like that for years. China has been steadily getting better, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_in_China#Air_polluti...

Whereas unfortunately it seems like India isn't improving: https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/06/india/india-air-pollution-not...

In the wheat growing parts of India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stubble_burning

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