Mill smell forecast

Where the wind is likely to carry pulp mill odour in Prince George right now and over the next day, and what the air stations are measuring.

Estimate, not a measurement

Right now

Wind from the south at 21 km/h carries odour to the north: most likely in Old Summit Lake.

Old Summit Lake likely

Forecast for 8:00 a.m. Updated 5 min ago

Downwind neighbourhoods on the map

Wind from the south at 21 km/h carries odour to the north: most likely in Old Summit Lake

Dark orange: likely downwind. Light: possible. Squares: mills. Dots: air stations measuring sulphur. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Next 24 hours by neighbourhood

Neighbourhood	Hours downwind	Of which likely	From
Old Summit Lake	17	15	Fri 8 a.m. to Sat 7 a.m.
CNR Industrial	8	8	Fri 8 p.m. to Sat 3 a.m.
Millar Addition	7	7	Fri 8 p.m. to Sat 2 a.m.
Central Hart	6	6	Fri 9 a.m. to Sat 7 a.m.
Blackburn	6	6	Fri 6 p.m. to Fri 11 p.m.
Pulpmill Rd.	6	6	Fri 8 p.m. to Sat 3 a.m.
Downtown	4	4	Sat 12 a.m. to Sat 3 a.m.
Crescents	4	4	Sat 12 a.m. to Sat 3 a.m.
East Central Fort George	4	4	Sat 12 a.m. to Sat 3 a.m.
Van Bow	3	3	Sat 12 a.m. to Sat 2 a.m.
VLA	3	3	Sat 12 a.m. to Sat 2 a.m.
Assman	3	3	Sat 12 a.m. to Sat 2 a.m.
Carrie Jane Gray Park	3	3	Sat 12 a.m. to Sat 2 a.m.
Seymour	3	3	Sat 12 a.m. to Sat 2 a.m.
Perry	3	2	Sat 12 a.m. to Sat 2 a.m.
South Fort George	2	2	Sat 12 a.m. to Sat 1 a.m.
Fraserview	2	2	Sat 12 a.m. to Sat 1 a.m.
Hart Highlands	4	0	Sat 12 a.m. to Sat 3 a.m.
West Bowl	4	0	Sat 12 a.m. to Sat 3 a.m.
Austin West	4	0	Sat 12 a.m. to Sat 3 a.m.
North Nechako	4	0	Sat 12 a.m. to Sat 3 a.m.
Cranbrook Hill	4	0	Sat 12 a.m. to Sat 3 a.m.
Heritage	4	0	Sat 12 a.m. to Sat 3 a.m.
Lansdowne	2	0	Sat 12 a.m. to Sat 1 a.m.
College Heights	2	0	Sat 12 a.m. to Sat 1 a.m.
Austin East	2	0	Sat 2 a.m. to Sat 3 a.m.
Chief Lake	1	0	Sat 3 a.m.

Measured at the air stations

Total reduced sulphur (TRS) and hydrogen sulphide (H2S) are the sulphur compounds behind the rotten-cabbage or rotten-egg smell of kraft pulp mills. Readings are in parts per billion (ppb), hourly and unverified. “Usual” compares with the same station over the last 30 days once we have three days of readings.

Station	TRS	H2S	Compared with usual	Hour
Exploration Place	0 ppb	–	Lower than usual	8:00 a.m.
Jail	0.5 ppb	–	About usual	7:00 a.m.
Lakewood	0.4 ppb	–	Lower than usual	7:00 a.m.
Plaza 400	0 ppb	–	Lower than usual	8:00 a.m.

Wind measured now: Exploration Place from 188° at 18.7 km/h; Glenview School from 177° at 20.2 km/h; Plaza 400 from 163° at 18 km/h; Pulp from 146° at 7 km/h.

How this estimate works

We take the hourly wind forecast for the city centre and assume odour travels with the wind from each mill.
A neighbourhood is downwind when the direction from a mill to the neighbourhood’s centre is within 30° of the wind’s path and it is within 12 km: likely in the nearer half, possible beyond.
Below 5 km/h we treat odour as lingering within 3 km of the mills instead of travelling.
Not modelled: how much each mill is emitting (or whether it is running), the valley terrain, temperature inversions and wind that differs from the forecast. Your nose and the station readings beat this estimate.

Smell something unusual or strong? Report it to the provincial Report All Poachers and Polluters line (RAPP) at 1-877-952-7277, and see air quality for smoke and fine particles.

Sources

How these figures are gathered

Live figures are fetched from these providers and cached briefly on our server. Provisional real-time data can be revised by the source. When a source is down we say so rather than guess.

BC Ministry of Environment and Parks, air monitoring stations: Hourly TRS, H2S and wind (unverified data), Open Government Licence – British Columbia
Open-Meteo: Hourly wind forecast, CC BY 4.0
OpenStreetMap contributors: Mill locations: Northwood pulp mill, Prince George Pulp and Paper mill, Intercontinental pulp mill (ODbL)
City of Prince George open data: Community boundaries
Data as JSON: Forecast, downwind neighbourhoods and readings

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