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Wednesday, June 2, 2021

Bad air quality data for a whole region

Apple watch screenshot for San Francisco showing air quality = 153, unhealthy, and the UV index is 10.0, very high

It looks like this is what happens when a single source of weather data gets well and truly confused. For reference purposes, out the window right now, it does not look like Mordor here in the Bay Area. But, the vendor that feeds data to Apple thinks there's something evil going on, so all of the iOS devices think that, too.

I saw this on my stuff a few minutes ago and went digging. Here's what the vendor ("BreezoMeter") thinks is going on for this whole area right now:

Screenshot of BreezoMeter "heat map" style rendering of the SF Bay Area that looks like a giant purple impact crater centered on Hayward with cooler colors ringing it, perhaps to a 30-40 mile radius, but beyond, all is well

I wonder, do they only have a single sensor here, and did someone back up a massive truck to it? Or maybe someone found it and decided to "roll coal" to see what it would do to all of our devices.

Well, there you go. According to them, we are in hell.

I just hope this isn't a prediction for the upcoming fire season.