Below are three webcams that are representative of different areas of the Central Wasatch along with their associated Air Quality Index measure. The images and information update in near real-time. Click on an image for more information from that location.
Snowbird
What is air quality?
Air quality is a measure of how clean or polluted the air is. Monitoring air quality is important because polluted air can be bad for our health—and the health of the environment. The air in our atmosphere is mostly made up of two gases that are essential for life on Earth: nitrogen and oxygen. However, the air also contains smaller amounts of many other gases and particles.
What factors affect air quality?
Emissions from vehicles, home heating, factories and industrial processes, and wildfires, as well as soil disturbance from construction sites change the gas and particle concentrations in our atmosphere and have a direct impact on air quality.
How is air quality measured?
Air quality is measured with the Air Quality Index, or AQI. The AQI works sort of like a thermometer that runs from 0 to 500 degrees. However, instead of showing changes in the temperature, the AQI is a way of showing changes in the amount of pollution in the air. AQI tracks five major air pollutants: ground level ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and airborne particles, or aerosols.
Ground level ozone and airborne particles are the two air pollutants that pose the greatest risk to human health in the United States. They are also the two of the main ingredients in smog, a type of air pollution that reduces visibility.
Explore vehicle emissions related information, and air quality and greenhouse gas concentration conditions for the Central Wasatch Mountains and surrounding areas.
What is weather?
Weather refers to the current meteorological conditions of the atmosphere. This includes variables such as current temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, wind speed and direction, and amount of solar radiation (sunlight).
What is climate?
Climate refers to long-term average weather conditions for a given geographic area or region. Two fundamental meteorological measures of climate are temperature and precipitation.
