National Air Quality Forecast Capability Summary
- Improving the Basis for AQ Alerts
- AQ Information for People at Risk
| AQ Alerts Prior to NAQFC | Current NOAA's Operational Capability (2016) | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose - Limit adverse effects from poor AQ, by providing: | Next-day warnings for large cities | State-of-the-science ozone, smoke, dust and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) forecast guidance |
| Products for Public | Daily AQ alerts; predicted interpretive AQ Index category | Hour-by-hour predictions of ozone, smoke, dust and PM2.5 concentrations in digital & graphical formats |
| Coverage | More than 300 cities | Nationwide for ozone, smoke and PM2.5, CONUS for dust |
| Pollutants Forecasted | AQ Index for ozone; some cities include particulate matter | Ground-level ozone, dust, smoke and PM2.5 |
| Forecast Period | Next-day; also through weekends | Forecast guidance through midnight next day |
| Spatial Resolution | Alerts are community-wide; little/ no other spatial information | 12 kilometer grid |
| Temporal Resolution | Daily | 1-hr averages each hour for ozone, smoke, and dust 8-hr averages each hour for ozone |
