What the AQI Number on Your Phone Actually Measures
An AQI of 180 sounds alarming, but what is it counting? Here’s how India’s Air Quality Index is worked out, what its colours mean, and why different apps show different numbers for the same air.
Smog in winter, the monsoon’s arrival, the AQI number on your phone: the air and weather shape daily life in India more than most of us realise.
This topic explains what the numbers mean, where they come from and what you can do with them.
An AQI of 180 sounds alarming, but what is it counting? Here’s how India’s Air Quality Index is worked out, what its colours mean, and why different apps show different numbers for the same air.
Your phone says 60% chance of rain at 4 p.m. Behind that number are satellites, radars, supercomputers and the laws of physics. Here’s how India’s weather forecasts are made, and why they can’t be perfect.
Delhi’s air is bad all year, but it turns dangerous from late October. The reason isn’t only more pollution: winter weather traps it close to the ground. Here’s how smog forms over the northern plains.
Every year the news waits for one announcement: the monsoon has arrived in Kerala. Here’s why the rains start there, how the India Meteorological Department decides the date, and how the monsoon spreads across the country.