Air & dust

Today's air over Moshi in plain words — dry-season dust and cane-and-cooking smoke, updated hourly.

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Is the air over Moshi clear today, or is it dry-season dust or smoke? This reads the Copernicus model for the town and explains it in plain words — the coarse particles (PM10) that point to blown dust, and the fine ones (PM2.5) that point to smoke — updated through the day.

Right now

Good Air quality is satisfactory and pollution poses little or no risk — no reason to change any plans.

Air quality index · US Air Quality Index (EPA)

US scale: under 50 is good, over 100 is unhealthy for sensitive groups

10.5 µg/m³

Fine particles (PM2.5)

The pollutant that matters most for health

11.5 µg/m³

Coarse particles (PM10)

Mostly wind-blown dust and sand

4.4 µg/m³

Nitrogen dioxide

Mostly from traffic

33.0 µg/m³

Ozone

Forms on hot, sunny days

Next few days

Day	Air quality
Tue, 25 Aug	Moderate
Wed, 26 Aug	Moderate
Thu, 27 Aug	Moderate
Fri, 28 Aug	Moderate

Worth knowing

Dry-season dust: the two dry windows

Moshi's air is dustiest in the dry months — roughly June to October, and again in January and February — when unpaved roads and bare fields lift coarse particles. On those days the PM10 number climbs while the fine particles stay lower; that gap is what the panel above calls ‘coarse dust’. The long rains (March–May) and short rains (November–December) wash most of it out of the air.

Cane and cooking smoke

Smoke is the other half of the story, and it is mostly fine particles (PM2.5). The TPC sugar estate on the plain south of town burns cane before harvest, and charcoal and wood cooking fires add fine smoke morning and evening. On a smoky day the fine number leads instead of the coarse one — the opposite of a dust day. Smoke is hardest on children, older people, and anyone with asthma or a heart condition.

An area picture, not your street

This is a model on a roughly 10 km grid for the area around Moshi at about 850 m, not a reading from your own road. Right beside a busy dala dala route, or next to a cooking fire, the air can be worse than the figures here. Where you stand matters.

Updated now. These are modelled estimates for the area around Moshi town centre, not readings from a street monitor — air right beside a busy road can be worse than the area-wide picture. The official index where you are is AirNow, from the US EPA. Air quality data by Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0), based on Copernicus CAMS.