smog in Chile? You be the judge

I finally figured out why they sell cough drops like candy here. I realized my throat feels scratchy too. NO, it's not because I have been screaming myself horse yelling at my students, but because I went running outside a couple times. I've checked the contamination levels and they seemed ok, but I guess what they say is good, isn't really that good.

The Santiago system for labeling their smog goes like this:
0-100 good
101-200 regular
201-300 bad
301-400 critical
401-500 dangerous

But in our very own Los Angeles, which is probably the most similar to Santiago has a different scale. Today LA has a level of 54. Their scale(and the rest of the world's) looks like this:
0-50 Good
51-100 Moderate
101-150 Unhealthy for sensitive groups
151-200 Unhealthy
200+ Very Unhealthy

Madison, WI is at 12 today.

Here's a visual display of the difference between a good day and a not so good day. But according to the government levels, this is still far from "Regular."

Both are views from my bedroom window.

(Here's the view from May 29th after a couple days of rain)


(Here we see a view from my window from yesterday, after about two weeks without rain, in winter. It's not cloudy outside, just hazy/smoggy. I heard because of the cold Humbolt Current, the cool air from the ocean keeps the pollution from moving around. Also I heard when Pinochet was in rule they wanted to blow up, or remove a mountain south of the city to allow the pollution to escape the urban area, but the dang environmentalists stopped that)