Air & dust
Today's air over Moshi in plain words — dry-season dust and cane-and-cooking smoke, updated hourly.
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Today's air over Moshi in plain words — dry-season dust and cane-and-cooking smoke, updated hourly.
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.
Fair Fine for being outside, including exercise, for almost everyone.
| Day | Air quality |
|---|---|
| Tue 16 Jun | Fair |
| Wed 17 Jun | Fair |
| Thu 18 Jun | Fair |
| Fri 19 Jun | Fair |
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.
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.
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 . 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. Air quality data by Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0), based on Copernicus CAMS.