Tools to help you better monitor Utah’s air quality
Dec 2, 2024, 9:36 PM | Updated: 10:54 pm
SALT LAKE CITY – People worried about Utah’s dirty air this week, may see it on the horizon, but wonder ‘How bad is the air actually right in front of me?’ KSL TV found the best tools and experts to give you that answer, and debunked products that don’t work.
Right now, the air on the Wasatch Front is thick, it’s hazy, and getting dirtier by the day. For those at risk from our unhealthy air, you may need to know more.
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“We’re trying to fill in some of these gaps,” Dr. Kerry Kelly, with the University of Utah Department of Chemical Engineering, said.
Kelly, an associate professor at the university, has been studying Utah air quality for the last 15 years, and shared the best tools you can use with KSL TV.
“First stop would be to go to the (Utah) Division of Air Quality, they’ll give you the current air quality and the forecast,” Kelly said.
The Utah Division of Air Quality gives you county by county how bad the air is and what you should do about it.
“That has our most recent air quality values. We have up to five days of trends that we show,” Shauna Ward, an air monitoring scientist with the Utah Division of Air Quality, said.
But to look at your individual neighborhood, the KSL.com Air Quality Network does the job, and so does tellusensors.com.
“This gives you a good heat map of what the air quality is like everywhere in the valley,” Kelly said.
The darker the color, the worse the air. You have also seen products online claiming to monitor air quality around your home.
“Lots of sensors claim they measure all kinds of things, and many of them are just random noise generators,” Kelly said. “They don’t really work.”
To see which sensors aren’t just blowing you smoke, check which good ones made the list for South Coast Air Quality Management District, which evaluates pollution sensors online.
