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Consider incorporating air quality/smoke information into beta.weather.gov #1344

Open shadkeene opened 2 months ago

shadkeene commented 2 months ago

Poor air quality is becoming more of an impactful environmental element as wildfires become more common across North America. Wildfires in Canada can send impactful smoke into the United States, from hundreds of miles away. Air pollution can be a significant hazard and is often driven by weather, and observations of air quality are managed by the federal government/EPA. Additionally (adjacent to serving air quality information on beta.weather.gov) , the NWS manages high resolution model information that can visualize when wildfire smoke impacts can increase/decrease across any given area, and these imagery are highly used during the summer, per google analytics. image

User story: I want to know the observed and forecast air quality for my area so I can plan appropriately and mitigate or prevent health impacts to myself, my family/friends, and and/or my community.

shadkeene commented 1 month ago

Received email back from EPA POC, regarding what data they recommend. I think, at this point, the AirNow API ( airnowapi.org ) would be a good start. It would allow you to link up with our city definitions and get consistent AQI numbers.