2016 SoE Atmosphere Capital cities' highest daily average PM2.5 concentrations, 2008-2014

Brief description

Data for the ACT is (C) Access canberra and licenced for reuse under the CC By 4.0 International, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Data for NSW was provided by the Office of Environment and Heritage, NSW Government.

Data for the Northern Territory was sourced from the Northern Territory Environment Protection Authority.

Data for Queensland was provided by the State of Queensland, Department of Science, Information Technology and Innovation.

Data for South Australia was created and supplied by the Environment Protection Authority, SA.

Data for Tasmania was provided by EPA Tasmania, DPIPWE.

Data for Victoria was provided by the Environment Protection Authority Victoria.

Data for Western Australia was provided by the Western Australian Department of Environment Regulation.

Data used to produce Figure ATM34 of SoE 2016. See https://soe.environment.gov.au/theme/ambient-air-quality/topic/2016/fine-particulate-matter-pm25#ambient-air-quality-figure-ATM34

Full description

2016 SoE Atmosphere Capital cities' highest daily average PM2.5 concentrations, 2008-2014 - Brisbane\r\n2009 – During September, two major dust storms resulted in very high particle levels across the entire south-east Queensland monitoring network between 23 September and 27 September. PM10 and PM2.5 levels measured on 23 September exceeded the previous highest levels, recorded during a dust storm in October 2002. The magnitude of the dust storms has been attributed to fine sediment from inland evaporation pans and floodplains in central Australia deposited by floods in February. Strong winds associated with the passage of two weather fronts whipped up the dry sediment into extensive dust storms that affected much of eastern Australia. In addition, hot dry gusty north-westerly winds preceding the weather fronts responsible for the dust storms produced very high fire risk conditions. A number of grass and bushfires occurred in south-east Queensland; locations included the Brisbane Valley, Bribie Island, Mt Tamborine and the Gold Coast hinterland. Smoke from these fires added to airborne particle concentrations. Between 20 September and 27 September there were a total of 40 exceedences of the Air NEPM24-hour PM10 standard, 14 exceedences of the Air NEPM24-hour PM2.5 standard and 61 exceedences of the EPP (Air) 1-hour visibility objective across the monitoring network. Exceedences occurred on four days during this period at most monitoring sites.\r\n