Since 2013, I’ve been exploring ways to get more real-time data about the haze situation in Singapore. We know how unhelpful 24-hour averages, and perhaps even 3-hour averages, are. There is better data out there, even from NEA, and if not with own sensors. Or even alternative sources such as the visibility information I posted about recently.
I think I can share some of this information. You can check out this page on the Real-Time Haze Update. The graphs on the page is updated automatically. You might have to refresh the page to ensure your browser loads the latest graph image.
Link: Real-Time Haze Update
As you can see, I’ve graphed the 1-hour PM 2.5 concentration levels in the various regions (North, South, East, West and Central), as well as the overall 3-hour PM 2.5 index for Singapore.
Just for interest, the above graph snapshot (this is static, i.e. not updated) shows 3-hour PM 2.5 index at 168, and looks to be on the downtrend. Looking at data graphically gives another dimension to their meaning.
Additionally, I’ve added information about visibility levels at Changi, Paya Lebar and Seletar. Yup, you’ll notice these are locations at airports. The data are from airport meteorological reports.
The above graph snapshot (static one again) shows visibility has been generally quite bad, even though PSI levels don’t seem to reflect the same. In normal times, visibility is 9999 m, which means infinite to aviators.
There are more, like dust sensors, which I have but those data don’t directly reflect the conditions outdoors. They are located indoors, and the dust levels indoors may sometimes depend on whether windows/doors are open, and if air purifiers are turned on. Since the indoor situation is unknown, just sharing the dust levels alone isn’t terribly helpful to members of the public. Hence, for now, I’ve decided not to include dust sensor information.
I hope to add more graphing data on the page in future. Theoretically forecasted conditions can also be included, but it’s difficult to parse the data automatically at this time, so it will be something for a future project.
Hi, Where are you getting your actual data? as in like the tables to create those charts
Which data? There are APIs from the data providers (e.g. NEA).
NEA provides their data? I tried to look at the some of the data that is available for download but those are only for the years . I kind of want to know where you get those specific timings and days for maybe a span of 2010-2014 something like that
Hi Samnuel, you can refer to https://www.nea.gov.sg/api/. I don’t know if there is API access to historical data, but you do get current data from them. Then there’s https://aviationweather.gov/adds/dataserver (among others) for aviation related data APIs.
Hi Zit Seng – thanks for this, very useful. Quick question – for getting the current data from NEA, is there a limited number of API calls that one can make? And do they offer a commercial model if you want to make more calls?
Sorry, I don’t know. However, I don’t think you’d need to poll often enough for frequency to become an issue, or that NEA would have a commercial service for this.