A thick haze has descended over the tiny island nation of Singapore. Waffle Press reporters go behind the scenes to find out more.

We first spoke to local haze expert Dr Connaught See. Dr See noted that there were a number of possible explanations for the lousy air quality.

Of course, the most obvious is the impending Prelim and Promo examinations, forcing massive smoke production from SDRHP citizens scrambling to hone their bullshitting skills and GP examiners trying to find reasonable answers for unreasonable questions. This would also explain why the haze tends only to occur near examination periods.

Dr See went on to explain that the haze was also a result of massive fires in Sumatra. Very much irritated by fact that Singapore did not celebrate the day Sang Nila Utama came to the island, locals established a new “Birthday Party”. The Party went on to burn trees to make the “biggest birthday cake ever”. As an added sign of rebellion, they have refused to put out the fires for cooling off day.

But he said that the problem went beyond that and that the flame wars in Singapore were a major contributing factor. He pointed out the particularly high number of burns during the election season. He explained that these burns would obviously result in the incineration of nearby trees and grass roots, generating copious amounts of smoke.

Dr See suggested that the low visibility has made it difficult for some locals to see far ahead. He went on to suggest that this would in some way lead to money burning, generating more smoke and creating a vicious cycle of haze.

The haze has also led to the uniquely Singaporean contradiction of hoping for rain to decrease the pollution while somehow blaming lightning for causing the haze in the first place. Some were even seen delivering offerings to Thor, hoping that he would use his hammer to fix the weather.

In response to the terrible haze, the NEA has announced a new simplified pollution measurement system. A spokesperson said that as a part of its push to make weather information easier to understand, the agency is going to remove the old PSI system (which often results in mix-ups with Korean pop stars and Physics equations) and replace it with something that streamlines the complaining process for Singaporeans.

The new system consists of just 3 possible readings: “High”, “Too Damn High” and “What The Fog”. A button allowing locals to instantly tweet the reading makes it remarkably easy for people to immediately complain about the lousy haze without any confusing meaningless numbers.

The Waffle Press will continue to closely monitor the weather situation and post relevant updates on Twitter.