Sandstorm!

The Gobi desert lies to the northwest of where I'm at in Hangzhou. It's about 1000 miles away, but the sand in that desert can make its way this far south with strong enough winds.

Occasionally we get hit with a sandstorm that can drop the air quality index (AQI) to dangerous levels. Today (and possibly tomorrow) looks to be some of those days. This is my first experience with this phenomenon.

I'm in the Binjiang district of Hangzhou. We're currently at 468 AQI. I have no idea what these numbers mean. In Bellingham, WA right now the AQI is 12. Seriously! 12?!???! Pbbbt. They're not even trying.

Well okay then. What an educational graphic. I picked this one because of the x x eyes on the apparently dead emoji. Nice touch. Guess I'll be staying inside the next two days. Really hoping this clears up before the weekend as I would like to find my way to the golf course early Saturday morning.

It doesn't look too bad outside currently, but there's definitely a yellow haze in the distance. I'm told it can get far worse than this. I don't get that. The scale maxs out at 550. I imagine that at 551 it's just turns into a wall of fire that engulfs everyone and everthing. Feels like Moses and the 15 (drops a tablet), 10 commandments.

Note: If you know that movie reference, you old. I know Durk, you don't know that one, but you still old anyway.