smoke levels today?: blue mtns

[wildwanderer]

Anyone live in the blue mtns? Whats the smoke levels like today?

Thinking with this cooler weather I might get a walk in.

(But not if I'm going to be breathing in hazardous smoke)

Sydney is relatively clear today but unsure about the blueys.

[Turfa]

Hard to tell if there is any smoke behind all that cloud !

https://scenicworld.com.au/web-cam

[wildwanderer]

hopefully that's not smoke!

But yeah.. need a man/woman on the spot in the blueys with 'mk 1 nose' smoke detection system.

[Warin]

With the fires they have some monitoring..

https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/topi ... monitoring

Katoomba looks good .. much better than yesterday in Sidney...

Note - the rolling 24 hour averages are still high .. but the 1 hour average (visibility) is lower.. so I think they are all falling.
I would like to see the real time readings.. or even an average from the last hour for the PM10 and 2.5
Rainfall has been light though .. 10mm max recorded near the fire area... Needs more light rain to fall...
http://www.bom.gov.au/nsw/flood/greatersydney.shtml

[wildwanderer]

Thanks Warin. Good to know there is some temp monitoring now available for katoomba.

Agree those 24 hour rolling averages seem a bit pointless. I remember earlier this week waking and seeing the inner suburb values were quite mild(reflecting smoke dissipating at night I assume) but that morning the smoke was so thick I could barely see 100 metres. Eyes started burning.

I dont see the reasoning of a 24 hour rolling average when people are trying to judge air quality at that moment, not what it was like up to 23 hours ago.. However maths is not my strong point so maybe there is some advantage that makes it relevant for current air quality?

[Warin]

However maths is not my strong point so maybe there is some advantage that makes it relevant for current air quality?

Don't think it is maths. More to do with patches and wind gusts. The immediate reading may fluctuate with patches of smoke giving wildly varying readings. Or the sensor may be built so it is slow to respond .. what ever the case is 'we' are stuck with what 'we' are given.

[wildwanderer]

Found this comprehensive blue mountains air quality monitoring site. Its connected to the monitoring on the nsw epa page but provides hourly detail across several sites in the blue mtns.

http://bluemountains.sensors.net.au/#

Excellent info but unfortunately it tells me I shouldn't go walking in the mountains this weekend.

[GregG]

Folks,
I spent all of today in the Blue Mountains. Apart from the cloudy overcast and rain showers(yipee!) the air quality seemed moderately good in comparison to the last couple of weeks, according to my own onboard smoke particle detection system ie. no irritated eyes or nose, no coughing or wheezing. So, I am a little dubious about the smoke pollution detection system shown on the above site. For example the reading of 147 units near Katoomba HS is rated as "hazardous" yet in North Katoomba the reading is only 4 units which is supposedly OK. The two locations are only a couple of K's apart. No doubt there are extraneous factors at work eg local topography, local wind direction variation, exposure of the sensor. Just sayin'.Also, can anyone tell me if the BOM radar only shows rain or does it detecting dense smoke colums as well and showing it as rain?

[wildwanderer]

Greg. Good to know smoke conditions didn't seem that bad up there.

Regarding the strange reading. The katoomba sensor that is showing good air quality appears to have malfunctioned. It's last reported reading was over 4 days ago. All the other sensors are being updated every few minutes.

That said the overall readings tonight are trending downward compared to this afternoon