How's the air in Calgary? Here are 3 ways to find out

These days, most of us have weather apps on our phones giving us forecasts and up-to-the-minute data on temperature, precipitation, wind speed and humidity.

Finding information on air quality, however, is a bit trickier.

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We tend to take clean air for granted in this city, as it's rare that we have to worry about an abundance of pollutants or make plans around how smoky we expect it to be outside.

But Calgary does get poor air from time to time, so here are a few ways you can check on the city's air quality.

Environment Canada

Environment Canada publishes a regular air quality health indexthatis concise and easy to read.

It also provides a forecast of what it expects air quality to be like over the next 18 hours, although these things can be difficult to predict.

Overall, it's a quick-and-easy way to get a rough gauge of how clean the air is and to make short-term plans.

Alberta Environment

Alberta Environment publishes the same information but in a different format.

At a glance, it provides a snapshot of current air quality levels across the province as well as forecasts for the next day.

Readings are collected from 34 communities across Alberta although forecasts are not available for all areas.

Calgary RegionAirshed Zone

The above two resources give you a top-level picture of air quality, but if you really want to drill down into the data, the Calgary Region Airshed Zone (CRAZ)isthe website for you.

It provides hour-by-hour readings of air quality levels at three monitoring stations across the city one in the northwest, one downtown and one in the southeast.

It also allows you to see precise levels for 10 different types of pollutants, including fine particulate matter, ground-level ozone, sulphur dioxide and hydrogen sulphide.

The interactive graphing system also lets you see how the levels of these pollutants compare to health guidelines.

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