Fireworks
2019 Austin-area New Year's fireworks episode
Daily PM2.5 peaked at 90.8 µg/m³ near Houston across 2 covered metros home to 10 million people. 2 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 ≈ 3.0 cigarettes. Across everyone living in the affected metros, that is the collective equivalent of ≈ 31 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
The official regional assessment says the Austin-area January 1 PM2.5 day was most likely due to New Year's Eve fireworks.
Sequence: Houston (Jan 1) → Austin (Jan 1)
Affected metros
| Metro | Peak PM2.5 | Cigarettes, whole event | Peak day | All-time standing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX | 90.8 µg/m³ | 4.1 | Jan 1, 2019 | #3 of its top days |
| Austin-Round Rock, TX | 41 µg/m³ | 1.9 | Jan 1, 2019 | #10 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
Agency and publisher pages 1
- 2019 Air Quality Report for the Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown Metropolitan Statistical Area The regional annual assessment states that January 1, 2019 was the sole Austin-area PM2.5 day rated unhealthy for sensitive groups and that it was most likely due to New Year’s Eve fireworks.
Cited authorities: Capital Area Council of Governments
What remains uncertain
- The supplied attribution specifically supports the Austin-area portion of this multi-place candidate; it does not separately attribute the Houston observation.
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.