NEA remain one day behind MSS in regional haze map...why?

Here is the regional haze map of NEA today 29th June at 10am when I last checked. It only has the regional haze map for 27th June.

On the other hand, Meteorological Service Singapore a division under NEA has a map from 28th June here.

In that case, I think NEA should just provide a link to MSS one and eveyrone will get the latest and greatest though it lags 24 hours but the graphic is easy to understand and gives somewhat an idea of what to expect the next day.

One could argue that their statellite imagery is even more updated (15:32hrs Friday 28th June) as shown here and we could use that instead but at times that seems very messy.

Oh well at least we got something to look at and interpret which gets improved by us making guess work looking outside the windows.

Here is the latest compilation of the regional haze map.

Preparing for the next hazing

So the first wave of haze we had before this fortunate respite, most of us were caught with our pants down. Some more so than others. Many felt the Government and various national agencies did not respond fast enough or adequately. Not to mention that press releases certainly did not seem to help. The more important thing though is to be individually prepared so in that line of thought other than getting myself and family N95 respirators, I bought some 3M Filtrete air cleaning filters.

The idea behind it is to try and make the air in one's own room breathable in a more comfortable manner other than wearing an N95 indoors when the PSI goes to a crazy high of 300++. I tried this when the PSI reached 371 and 401 on those fate days. Also due to the nature of the N95, it is practically impossible to sleep with it and in fact one should NOT do it. Unless one wishes to challenge The Devil to a game of chess.

So 3M Filtrete air cleaning filters are made out of electrostatic fibres and hence supposedly filter more fine particles and in general better filters. They come in comes in 2 varieties. One is the standard one and come in a red packaging shown below.

This is the pre-cut type with self adhesives and comes with 4 pieces good for 2 air cons. Dimensions of each piece is 19cm x 30cm. The other type also in red packaging comes with 2 pieces but you would have to tape it yourself and comes in dimensions of 30cm x 60cm. I prefer the latter as it is more flexible for the task I use it for.

Below is the other one in blue packaging. It has added odour reducing carbon filter on it. I just got it yesterday when it was finally re-stocked. Previously I used the red one. I bought the blue to try out the difference and intend to when the next haze attack comes.

So what I did was to take the standard stand fan shown below for modding.

I added the filters to the back of it, held up with simple rubber bands.

Amazingly this works and the smell during those days were noticeably less or even missing from my room and I could sleep relatively well given all the yellow phlegm I was spewing out. You can also see it is starting to yellow even after 2 days of usage. So armed with the blue 3M Filtrete air cleaning filter, I am poised and ready for the next wave.

A company Nordic Pure has a handy guide showing different standards and what levels of particle filtration they do.

On a longer term front, I have purchased a Honeywell 17000 air purifier and will review when it arrive sometime late July. By then if the haze is around I would get to send it to its baptism of fire.

Great Scott! We are surrounded in a cloud of haze

As shown from the animation below of a collage of regional haze maps 20th June to 25th June, the has almost flanked our island from almost all quarters except the South East direction. So it looks like it will be a matter of a few days more until we start to experience hazy conditions again. Sadly, no hail on the east side. Shucks and I thought things were just about to get a tad bit exciting around here.

Meanwhile the 3M Filtrete seem to be sold out still in Home Fix. I eagerly await the 3M Filtrete Room Air Conditioner Filter to arrive so as to test out the higher MPR one.

Although the skies are clearer now, there is no doubt there is still quite a bit of crud in the air as I still occasionally cough out super thick yellow phlegm.

To end off on a more light hearted note, here is someone's rendition of the PSI Index according to Hello Kitty Fairy Tale series. Witch Kitty is first I guess as she does not wear any hood on her head. The next four features hoods and masks, going from green to red, like a traffic light status. Finally with super high PSI of more than 500, we will all become black like the Singing Bone one and yes tomorrow is the finale to this exciting crazy chase for all the kitties.

Nice clear weather with a chance of hail

In the west, we have reports of small sized hail coming down from the sky. Wow. I wonder if that is the first time on our island that we had reports of hail. If the east side rains hail, I will definitely take some video of it.

Anyway, as mention in an earlier post, NEA has changed it reporting format. So people have gone out to look for other sources of PSI and the like. One that is quite good I find is this. It provides hours updates and even the different regions in Singapore. Pretty good and it even has widgets for various OS like Android and iOS. Go get it if you want track the air quality around the island.

Another strange thing is the regional haze map on NEA's website has stopped updating from 23rd June 2013. Not sure if it is an oversight but after some digging, I found it under the Meteorological Service of Singapore. We can see that the south-easterly winds seem to be weakening. So maybe even as early as tomorrow we might be in the less dense haze cloud. Ouch. What is equally troubling is that the hotspots have increased dramatically though NEA statement on that is one major contributing factor could be they are now recording those that were previously undetected.

Face Masks standards and what they mean

Did some surfing to try and educate myself today on the various standards of particulate filtration that face mask are certified against.

We of course all now know the infamous N95 or at least heard of it. What does it really mean? Here is what I gathered from several online sources and help from a friend.

In order to obtain certification as an N95, a respirator must pass NIOSH’s test requirements, which include Exhalation Resistance, Inhalation Resistance and Sodium Chloride (NaCl) N95 Filtration.

There are 3 different filter classifications for particulate filters under the AS/NZS 1715 being a P1, P2 and P3.

The filters are tested against a sodium chloride solution with a size range of 0.02 micrometer to 2 micrometer which has a mass medium particle diameter of 0.3 micrometer to 0.6 micrometer.
 
A P1 filter must not have more than 20% penetration (filters at least 80%)
A P2 filter must not have more than 6% penetration  (filters at least 94%)
A P3 filter must not have more than .05% penetration (filters at least 99.95%)


Someone came up with an even more handy chart, reproduced below.

In other words, N95 is somewhat equivalent to a P2 one. Good to know if anyone is buying such stuff over in NZ or Australia or asking their relatives to get from there.

There are a lot of misinformation out there, some websites have items that are evaporative air coolers that are being claimed as air purifiers just because they have a simple mesh dust filter in them! Some people really know how to exploit FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) at this period in time!

Also note that the effectiveness of an N95 mask is affected by dirt AND moisture, please do not be cheapskate and try to wash and reuse! Things do not work that way!!!

NEA changes its PSI reporting webpages

I seriously do not know if this is for better or for worse. NEA has decided to follow the ruling party's advice that 24-hour PSI readings are more important to look at. As of 1800hrs onwards, the site has changed its presentation format.

Below is the screenshot of the old format. Bye bye! I will miss you! You have served us quite faithfully and well before and during this current haze crisis.

Here is the new format. Notice the focus on the 24-hour PSI reading, the blue scrolling bar is the only place you will see the current hour 3-hour PSI reading. All other information is gone!

The 2nd link for historical PSI reading does not provide the historical 3-hour PSI readings either.

Actually I thought they should provide even more details as we go deeper into this crisis like providing the spot hourly PSI readings in addition to the 3-hour PSI. But I think we all need to read the right thing and this is a step into that direction.

At the end of the day...keep calm and carry on lah!

Thankfully the PSI level is now in the more tolerable lower end spectrum of the "unhealthy" range. Earlier with the earth shattering 401 PSI I took to even wearing my mask indoors as it was quite bad. Not only that, I got a free slight fever courtesy of the haze, unfortunately for me, I do not qualify for the SGD10.00 special lelong rate to see a doc.

So keep calm and carry on! Rinse and repeat this tomorrow for sure! It is the weekend after all and Murphy must participate. The rabbit meanwhile has learnt to be really chill. I envy it.

So one thing I noticed that roughly 24 hours after attached the 3M Filtrete paper onto my stand fan, one can see some discolouration which is hauntingly familiar. It looks like those tobacco filter after a smoker is through with it. No $#!T Sherlock, this is not photoshop-ed for effect. The filter paper is really browning. Even the aircon ones I attached are like that too.

As I was wide awake at around 0300hrs this morning, I did some google research on various air purifiers, PM ratings, haze and so on and ended up with some thoughts.

From what I gathered, the best no nonsense approach would be to bascially seal a room properly and whack a true HEPA air purifier to filter the existing air and fresh incoming air into the room. Since I was so irritated by this whole episode and getting a free fever, I gathered up my credit card and ordered from Amazon a Honeywell Long-Life Pure HEPA QuietCare Air Purifier, 17000. I am no way promoting it but just providing information to anyone interested. This is a US unit that is 120Vac so you got to whack a step down transformer before using! It is due to arrive sometime in July. Yeah the haze might long be gone or we might get the tail end of it for me to experiment. Small outlay but potential great comfort for me in the long run/future.

As you cannot lug around this 6kg beauty everywhere you go and not to mention it cannot purify the whole office that you work in, a common alternative that people are going for is personal protection equipment like the N95 rated mask. Which is flaky way of doing things as improper seal on the mouth is the easiest way to render this as good as the common toilet paper. Common mistake you see is people using too big ones. I suspect that they were not able to get the right size and just bought whatever they could get their hands on.

Which is why chemical defence people use gas masks and not N95 right (former NSF) boys? N95 was more designed to prevent a user's spread of germs etc than preventing dust inhalation. That is a big difference. But the thing is gas masks look silly sometimes, have poor designs and colours and generally is not easy to put on. Also one has to be pretty clean shaven to ensure a good seal (but is easier to get a good seal than N95). So men who want to maintain that stubble look need not look at gas masks or half face/full face respirators with insanely high ratings.

Moving onto the haze part. Estimate of what particulates constitute a haze says PM10 and below make up the bulk eg 80-90 percent. Some even say PM2.5 make up 80 percent of a haze. If so most of us are well and truly done as most masks will not filter these particulates.

But wait a minute here, why does the usage of a simple 3 ply seem to work? Well here is my uneducated guess. It probably filters the larger than PM10 particulates (the minimum size depends on the material and construction of the mask of course) which NEA does not measure. We do not measure them as EPA guideline setters and other learned and esteemed folks around the world agree in general that the wonderful nastiness lie mostly in PM10 and below sizes.

Mind you though, inhaling bigger particulates will still irritate our respiratory system, go ask your friendly local volcano victim in Pompeii and I am sure he will concur.

So whatever it is, it is probably good to filter what we can by masks to remove what irritants we can but let us not kid ourselves. The actual solution is getting an effective air purifier but even that is sometimes fraught with dubious claims and sometimes even dangerous by products. which is why I am just going for the simple physical media separation method as it is the old school way. Haha.

Now let me go now and cough up my half my lungs. Hopefully I get a good night's sleep. My 3M Filtrete paper filters mainly 5 to 7 microns. Maybe it is just lousy enough to keep my phelgm yellow but also good enough in preventing me from collapsing like a little girl on the floor from the haze.

Another day, another record breaking PSI

Yup that is right, the PSI has hit an all time high of 401 as of 1200hrs today. Concerned people have been accessing NEA's website so much until it eventually gave up the ghost and went down like before.

At any rate PSI at 401 was not really unexpected considering how it was trending for the day. In fact, based on yesterday's experience I felt that today would be even worse and I think that is exactly how it is panning out.

Based on NEA's provided graphics, we are not out of the woods yet, so there is a chance that tomorrow or even the day after we might see the same or even more elevated PSI levels.

I have resorted to putting the rabbit back into the room again. He seems pretty happy!

Also the sun is now very orangey as a result which is actually quite beautiful, if one can ignore the haze...

(those squeamish ones, please skip this part!) Unfortunately for me, I am quite sensitive and actually hacked so hard that I coughed blood in one instance as shown below...

Oh moon where art thou? Hopefully me sees you on 23rd June

Woke up sometime at 033hrs and could not fall back to slumber. I recalled that the Full Moon Perigee (largest and close full moon of 2013) was coming up and googled around to find out more. The Science Centre has a PDF which lists out interesting celestial events of the year which was very interesting indeed as I did not realise that we could sometimes see other planets with the naked eye other than Mars. The link is here.

So in a nutshell, between 8pm - 6am on that day we we get to see a big moon. So hopefully the haze will not obstruct the view too much! With a zooms lens, I managed to capture quite a nice moon picture as seen below. So fingers crossed for good skies 23rd.

The great news was that throughout last night the haze overall decreased quite significantly until it briefly fell just under the unhealthy range. Now that the Indonesian farmers have woken up and eaten breakfast, they are starting work. So the PSI now is slowly creeping up again. I jest I jest but the truth is it is slowly creeping up. Oh well here we go again, same old $#!T again... as the army song went...

Another one for the record books...

While everyone one was going after the mouth-less Kitties, the PSI began at 128 and steadily climbed up to a new record for the 3-hours PSI of 371. Again this is in the hazardous level but so far no stop work order has been issued by MOM

Strong words have been coming from both sides (Singapore and Indonesia), with one side talking about wanting some definitive action after an emergency meeting occurring today and the other side saying slightly impolitely to "man up".

Bought some 3M Filtrete paper to see if it would help at least just reduced the amount of crap in the room air so that I can sleep a bit better this evening. No promises made but at least there is some hope to get a decent sleep without waking up with a horrible abused throat.

Maybe I need to get one with a higher MPR but fingers crossed this will do the trick.

Also the rabbit is in the next room with me monitoring the critter via Skype webcam. So far he is sitting around there behaving very nicely. Though he is not totally relaxed and lying out. He is sitting in a slightly refrained manner with his front paws tucked in. 

Here he is giving the nonchalant "bleh" look.

Record Breaking 3-Hour PSI in SG and NEL suffers a train fault all in the same day...

Wow, the 3-hour PSI reading has hit a record breaking level of 290 (at of 10pm) here in Singapore. This news has probably gone viral and every Tom, Dick and Harry is talking about it. As seen from the app this is occurring in the evening where most people are hopefully indoors. This haze has distracted everyone from the dengue outbreak I believe and I cannot help but wonderful which is the lesser of 2 evils?

Of course it does not help a single iota that the NEL a couple of hours back had suffered a train fault.

It has since recovered so hopefully people will get a chance to head home quickly and hide indoors. Masks are selling well and so are air purifiers and the like, but really I think what each household might want to invest in are probably air filtration units.

[Update 0613 : 20th Jun 2013] We have achieved a whopping 321 for the 3-hour PSI at 2200hrs. This is recording breaking in Singapore's history. MOM says if the haze persists at hazardous levels that a stop work order might be imposed. Who would have thought this day would come?