Tuleyome's Science Corner: Getting Accurate Air Quality Information

Kristie Ehrhardt • June 7, 2022

The Air Quality Index (AQI) is a color and number value assigned to the current level of air pollution, the higher the number the worse the air quality is. The AQI is easy to interpret with number values ranging from 0 to 500 and the colors progressing from green (healthy, 0-50), yellow (moderate, 51-100), orange (unhealthy for sensitive groups, 101-150), red (unhealthy for everyone 151-200), purple (very unhealthy, 201-300) to dark purple (hazardous, 301-500). The objective of the AQI is to help you understand what the current air situation is and how it affects your health. Knowing the AQI for your immediate area helps you decide if it’s safe to go for a run outside or if maybe you should work out at the gym that day. But, where do you look for reliable air quality information? Most people I know head straight to their smart phones but simply opening the weather app isn’t giving you true, accurate air quality data for your area. Below are several resources to help you understand your current air quality situation and what you can do to avoid impacts to your health.


If you want to know the current air quality data for the Sacramento region, check out Spare the Air.  They have a free app which makes it just as easy as checking the weather app on your smart phone but the data is recalculated hourly from monitors all through the region to provide the most current information for your specific area. You will also get a Spare the Air alert when the AQI is forecast to reach 126 or above for the Sacramento region.


To get reliable forecast information for Yolo County, check out Enviroflash. Enviroflash is provided by local, state and federal environmental agencies and offers suggested safety measures for current and forecasted bad air quality. The information provided by Enviroflash is the same information that is provided to local news agencies but you can receive a tweet or an email from them before even turning on the television or radio. You can select the AQI level that you’d like to be notified at; for someone who is particularly sensitive to bad air quality, you may wish to receive notifications at a lower AQI. Visit the website to sign up for forecast notifications.


During a wildfire or other smoke event visit AirNow. This site uses data collected from a network of monitors and sensors placed all over the region. Some of them are temporary sensors that were placed during a smoke event to get additional data and some of them are permanent sensors or monitors that collect information year-round. The data from all of these sensors is shared, combined and corrected to provide accurate air quality information for that specific area. You can look at the map and choose specific sensors to look at as well as large fire incidents, satellite fire detections and smoke plumes.


Having reliable air quality information can help you adjust your activities, remember, even healthy people can be affected by poor air quality. If you can smell smoke, you’re breathing smoke.


-Kristie Ehrhardt; kehrhardt@tuleyome.org


Tuleyome Land Conservation Program Manager

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