Frequently asked questions.

Nafas is a dust-and-air-quality forecasting service for Gulf businesses. It turns free public satellite and ground-station data into plain-language operational decisions, not just an AQI number, but an answer like “move Thursday’s event indoors, hazardous dust 6–11am.” The 10-city dashboard is live and free to use; there is no paid product yet. Nafas is built by a three-person founding team preparing to relocate to Abu Dhabi.

Nafas combines free public data — Copernicus CAMS atmospheric forecasts (via Open-Meteo), Sentinel-5P satellite readings, and public ground-station measurements — with a forecasting model to project air quality 48 hours ahead per city. A decision layer then translates that forecast into plain language: what’s likely to happen, and what to do about it. No hardware is owned or deployed.

Three free, public sources: Copernicus CAMS atmospheric forecasts (via Open-Meteo), Sentinel-5P satellite observations of aerosols and pollution gases, and public ground-station readings, plus wind, humidity, and temperature forecasts, since wind is what moves dust. Nafas owns no sensors or hardware; it reads instruments that already exist and publish openly.

Nafas forecasts 48 hours ahead for 10 cities across the Gulf today, updated twice daily. Validation is closest in the UAE right now, since it has the region’s densest public ground-sensor coverage; those sensors are community-operated low-cost monitors rather than reference-grade instruments, because no reference-grade PM feed in the region publishes live. Coverage uses the same satellite and model pipeline region-wide as it expands.

Forecasts update twice daily and cover a 48-hour window. The underlying satellite and ground data refresh every few hours behind the scenes, so each forecast reflects recent atmospheric readings and station observations rather than a static once-a-day snapshot.

Nafas translates forecasts into standard AQI severity bands — Good, Moderate, Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups, Unhealthy, Very Unhealthy, and Hazardous — then adds plain language on top: what a band means for an outdoor event, a school, or a facility, rather than leaving customers to interpret a number alone.

Nafas has run a daily validation archive since 4 July 2026, checking every forecast against live public ground-sensor readings across the UAE. First accuracy results, mean error and how often the forecast lands in the right AQI band, are being compiled now and will be published once validation is complete, rather than asserted upfront.

Yes, for now. The public dashboard, GCC dust map, and city forecasts are free to use. Nafas plans paid features later — alerts, site-specific reports, and an API feed — once the free product has real usage and pilot conversations with early customers are underway. Nothing is paywalled today.

Nafas forecasts dust and air-quality conditions generally, including large dust events often called sandstorms, using satellite aerosol data and wind forecasts, since wind is what moves dust across the Gulf. It isn’t a general severe-weather warning service; the focus is air quality and visibility tied to dust.

Nafas is built by a three-person founding team: Aarnav Chauhan (Founder/CTO), Kunwar Sethi (Co-founder/CEO), and Kartikay Pandey (Co-founder/COO). The company is bootstrapped, pre-revenue, and pre-incorporation, with all three founders committed to relocating to Abu Dhabi to build it. See the About page for the full story.

Live today: a 10-city, 48-hour plain-language forecast layer, updated twice daily. Next: push alerts, so advice reaches you before you have to check. After that: a Gulf-specific dust model trained on Nafas’s own validation archive rather than global defaults, alongside paid features like site-specific reports and an API feed.

Nafas (نَفَس) is Arabic for breath. The name keeps the product’s purpose in view: the point is air people can breathe safely, not a dashboard full of numbers or a raw AQI figure on a screen.