Dust
2005-09-14 transported or windblown dust episode affecting Jacksonville, FL, Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL, Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL, Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach, FL, Lakeland-Winter Haven, FL, Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, FL
Daily PM2.5 peaked at 46.8 µg/m³ near Jacksonville across 6 covered metros home to 10 million people. 5 metros placed a top-ten day in their record.
Counting the extra PM2.5 above each metro's typical day, this event handed the average affected resident ≈ 5.4 cigarettes. Across everyone living in the affected metros, that is the collective equivalent of ≈ 56 million cigarettes. An awareness illustration of outdoor exposure at 22 µg/m³ per cigarette (Berkeley Earth), counting only the event's ranked days; not a medical dose.
Episode peak
-- cigarettes
The smoke map's scale, replayed over this event: the surface interpolates between covered metros' daily records, framed to the affected region. Hover for a reading, click a metro to pin it to the card. Days a monitor did not report draw nothing.
What happened, in the record
Qualified frozen evidence supports transported or windblown dust as the broad root cause.
Sequence: Jacksonville (Sep 14) → Orlando (Sep 14) → Tampa (Sep 15) → Deltona (Sep 16) → Lakeland (Sep 16) → Palm Bay (Sep 16)
Affected metros
| Metro | Peak PM2.5 | Cigarettes, whole event | Peak day | All-time standing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jacksonville, FL | 46.8 µg/m³ | 9.6 | Sep 15, 2005 | #12 of its top days |
| Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL | 46.4 µg/m³ | 7.7 | Sep 15, 2005 | #4 of its top days |
| Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL | 44.1 µg/m³ | 7.5 | Sep 15, 2005 | #9 of its top days |
| Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach, FL | 43.6 µg/m³ | 2.0 | Sep 16, 2005 | #3 of its top days |
| Lakeland-Winter Haven, FL | 42 µg/m³ | 1.9 | Sep 16, 2005 | #5 of its top days |
| Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, FL | 40.2 µg/m³ | 1.8 | Sep 16, 2005 | #2 of its top days |
"Cigarettes, whole event" totals a metro's ranked event days at 22 µg/m³ per cigarette: what a person outdoors there breathed across the event, as the illustration. "All-time standing" is where this episode's days sit in each metro's ranked record (worst-area measure, since 1999). Full local context is on each metro's Air Records page.
The evidence
EPA AQS monitor qualifier 3
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier RA — African Dust. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted request-exclusion qualifier (RA, African Dust.) on 2 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2005-09-16, identifying windblown or transported dust as affecting the samples. A request-exclusion qualifier is an official submitting-agency causal claim, but this endpoint does not establish EPA concurrence.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier RA — African Dust. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted request-exclusion qualifier (RA, African Dust.) on 2 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2005-09-15, identifying windblown or transported dust as affecting the samples. A request-exclusion qualifier is an official submitting-agency causal claim, but this endpoint does not establish EPA concurrence.
- AQS PM2.5 qualifier RA — African Dust. EPA AQS carries an agency-submitted request-exclusion qualifier (RA, African Dust.) on 2 PM2.5 samples in the candidate CBSA on 2005-09-17, identifying windblown or transported dust as affecting the samples. A request-exclusion qualifier is an official submitting-agency causal claim, but this endpoint does not establish EPA concurrence.
What remains uncertain
- AQS qualifiers are submitting-agency causal flags and do not by themselves establish EPA concurrence.
Status and provenance
Research preview: this record carries research-only status and its boundaries, cause, and name may change as evidence review completes. Grouping policy common_sense_root_cause_grouping.v2. The cause label reflects the assembled evidence above, not an IAQng detection formula.