Punjab Air Quality on 20 October 2026: Kasur 342, Jhang 312, Lahore 207

Kasur read 342 and Jhang 312, both Very Unhealthy, at 5:00 am on 20 October 2026 on Punjab's official air quality dashboard. Lahore read 207, Unhealthy, down from 252 at the same hour a day earlier. Pakpattan showed 500, the top of the scale, one hour after it read 252.

We opened aqi.punjab.gov.pk twice early on Tuesday, 20 October 2026, at the 4:00 am and 5:00 am updates. The dashboard belongs to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Punjab and runs on its own monitoring stations. The air quality index, or AQI, turns the amount of fine dust and gases in the air into one number from 0 to 500. Anything above 200 is Unhealthy for everyone, not only for children and patients.

Kasur and Jhang were the worst ranked cities at 5 am

At 5:00 am on 20 October, Pakpattan topped the ranking at 500, followed by Kasur at 342 and Jhang at 312. Kasur and Jhang sit in the Very Unhealthy band. Vehari, Nankana Sahib, Rajanpur, Lahore and Multan were all Unhealthy, above 200.

The hour before told a different story. At 4:00 am Nankana Sahib led at 288, Jhang was second at 264 and Pakpattan third at 252. Kasur was twelfth at 196. So the order moved a lot in one hour, which is normal for hourly readings in still night air.

Pakpattan's 500 came one hour after a reading of 252

Pakpattan read 252 at 4:00 am and 500 at 5:00 am. A doubling in one hour can be a real smoke plume near a station, or a sensor fault. The dashboard does not say which, so treat the figure with care until later hours confirm it.

The same page carried a "Connectivity Issue" notice saying some stations had trouble sending data. It did not name them. Five districts in its own list, Muzaffargarh, Khanewal, Gujrat, Narowal and Sialkot, had no ranking at 5:00 am. That is why the table ranks 31 cities, not 36.

Our advice is simple. Look at your own city again after sunrise, when wind usually picks up and the readings settle. One hour is a snapshot. A run of three or four bad hours is the signal to change your plans.

Lahore read 207, lower than the 265 recorded on 19 October

Lahore's figure, averaged over 11 stations, was 207 at 5:00 am on 20 October, in the Unhealthy band. The dashboard put the same hour on 19 October at 252. At 3:00 am on 19 October the city had read 265.

That is a small improvement, not clean air. On 19 October we reported Lahore at 265 with Safari Park at 500. On 20 October no Lahore station was above 300. Shahdara was the worst at 279, and five of the 11 stations were still above 200.

PM2.5 means particles smaller than 2.5 micrometres, small enough to reach deep into the lungs. Gulberg III is the odd one out. Its PM2.5 was 94, but its coarser PM10 dust was 347.4, which pushed its index to 199. Any reader can check Lahore's air quality on the Punjab dashboard station by station, as we did.

Twenty three of 31 ranked cities were above 150 at 5 am

At 5:00 am, 23 of the 31 ranked cities were above 150, the level where the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups. One was Hazardous, two Very Unhealthy, five Unhealthy and fifteen Unhealthy for sensitive groups. The other eight were Moderate.

The cleanest ranked city was Wazirabad at 104. Murree read 113 and Rawalpindi 122. So even the north of the province was in the Moderate band, not Good or Satisfactory. The south and centre, from Kasur down to Rajanpur, carried the worst air.

PMD expects dry weather and no rain for the plains until at least 23 October

The Pakistan Meteorological Department's weekly outlook, issued on 19 October, expects dry weather in most of the country from 19 to 23 October. Rain is forecast only for upper Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan on 24 and 25 October, not for Punjab's plains.

The PMD weekly outlook says continental air is over most of the country. Its daily forecast for Tuesday gives Lahore 31 to 33 degrees and Multan 32 to 34. The AQI dashboard's weather panel at 5:00 am showed Lahore at 23 degrees, humidity 83 per cent and wind of only 0.5 metres a second. Still, damp night air holds smoke near the ground. The earlier PMD outlook for 19 to 24 October also forecast a dry week.

The EPA advises masks outdoors and less outdoor activity

The dashboard's health advice on 20 October told the general public to wear a face mask outdoors and avoid heavy or long outdoor activity. It told vulnerable groups to stay indoors as much as possible and use an N95 mask if going out is necessary.

1. Check your own city on the dashboard before the school run or a long drive.
2. Wear an N95 or KN95 mask outside if your city is above 200.
3. Keep children indoors in the early morning, when the readings are often worst.
4. Skip outdoor exercise until the reading drops below 150.
5. Report smoke from a kiln, factory or burning crop to the EPA helpline 1373.

The EPA's advice also says patients with COPD (a long-term lung disease) or heart disease should ask a doctor about mask use. The national health advice on wearing an N95 or KN95 mask in smog names those two types for fine dust.

Common questions

What was Lahore's AQI on 20 October 2026?

Lahore read 207, Unhealthy, at 5:00 am on 20 October 2026 on the Punjab EPA dashboard. At 4:00 am it read 218.

Which Punjab city had the worst air on 20 October?

Pakpattan showed 500 at 5:00 am, but it read 252 an hour earlier. Kasur at 342 and Jhang at 312 were the next worst.

Is an AQI of 207 dangerous?

Yes. The dashboard's scale calls 201 to 300 Unhealthy, which means everyone can feel effects, not only sensitive groups.

Will rain clear Punjab's smog this week?

Not according to PMD. Its 19 October outlook expects dry weather in Punjab through 23 October, with rain only in the far north on 24 and 25 October.

Where can I report crop burning or a smoking kiln?

Call the EPA helpline 1373, printed on the dashboard, or use the Green Punjab app listed on the EPA's website.

How we verified this

What we checked, where we read it, and what we could not confirm.

We read the Punjab EPA air quality dashboard at aqi.punjab.gov.pk at its 4:00 am and 5:00 am updates on 20 October 2026, including the city ranking, the Lahore station table, the weather panel and the health advice. We read PMD's weekly outlook issued on 19 October 2026 and its daily forecast issued at 17:30 on 19 October 2026 on weather.gov.pk. We could not find out which stations the connectivity notice covered, or whether Pakpattan's 500 was a real spike or a fault. The EPA's orders page still lists its 2025 smog orders, and we found no new emergency order there for 2026; the EPA's July pre-smog action plan for 2026 is the latest plan we have read.