We cannot show a reading right now
Antigonish has no air quality station of its own, and the Reel does not yet have a live feed for the nearest ones. We show a reading only when we can name its source and freshness.
No successful source check is recorded.
Where this comes from
No air quality feed is connected
Antigonish has no air quality station of its own. The nearest are at Pictou to the west and Port Hawkesbury to the east, both published hourly by Environment and Climate Change Canada. The Reel does not yet read either one; we will name the source here, with a link, once it is connected.
The different measures, and why they disagree
These are the measures you will actually meet when a reading is shown here, and they do not all mean the same thing.
The Air Quality Health Index
1 to 10, then 10+
How much today’s air is likely to affect your health. It blends three pollutants rather than picking one: fine particles, ground-level ozone, and nitrogen dioxide.
Canada’s official measure, published hourly by Environment and Climate Change Canada with a forecast for today, tonight, and tomorrow.
The American index, or AQI
0 to 500
How dirty the air is. It reports whichever single pollutant is worst rather than blending them, and it covers six of them.
What most phone apps and weather sites show. The two numbers are not the same measure and do not convert cleanly. On a smoky day, an index of 7 or more here lines up roughly with 151 or more there.
The raw pollutant readings
Micrograms per cubic metre for particles, parts per billion for gases
What is actually in the air. Fine particles, written PM2.5, are the ones wildfire smoke drives up, and the ones small enough to reach deep into the lungs.
Underneath the index on the monitoring pages, for anyone who wants the numbers the index was built from.
Special air quality statements
Not a number at all
That conditions are bad enough to warn people directly, which around here usually means wildfire smoke.
Issued alongside weather warnings, and worth more than the number on days when the smoke arrives faster than the hourly reading.
Pollen and mould counts
Low to very high
How much airborne allergen there is. This is an allergy measure, not an air pollution one.
Published by allergy services. A miserable pollen day can sit underneath a perfectly good air quality reading, which is why the two get confused.
What we read to get this
No source has been read yet: no live air quality feed is connected.