It's the Bay and Laird Show on WNLIC, good morning again everyone.

Well, it's another day with air quality alerts in effect for parts of the Greater New York

area, but that doesn't mean the air quality is bad at all times and all places in our

region.

Just before the show, the interactive website airnow.gov showed only a moderate amount of

PM 2.5, the wildfire smoke particulates, and ozone level is down around 20 region wide,

which is very good.

Confused yet, many people are.

And it gets more confusing when you look at variations within our neighborhoods and

based on where the air quality monitors are on the air now map compared to the color-coded

danger and safety zones.

I'm looking right now, for example, since we were just talking about Jersey, I'll stay

there in the Hoboken Jersey City region, just on the other side of the tunnel from Lower

Manhattan, I'm seeing a reading of 57, sorry, 63, which puts it in the moderately unhealthy

category, a little bit south and bayon, the AQI is only 18, which puts it in the very

good air quality zone, the variations really that local.

We've been getting a lot of caller questions about this new to New York phenomenon of wildfire

smoke as part of the everyday weather check.

So what is the air quality index actually measure?

How do I read the airnow.gov map that a lot of people are now turning to how hyperlocally

does the AQI vary and can I see that on air now?

Was the air often unhealthy in the summer because of ozone, not wildfire smoke in past years,

...