Air Quality in Austin, Texas — Live

Live readings from PurpleAir sensors across Austin — with free alerts the moment the air turns.

Live Austin AQI from nearby PurpleAir sensors loads when this page opens in a browser, along with a live sensor map covering Austin and Round Rock, Cedar Park, Pflugerville, San Marcos.

Austin is the rare large American metro that is not on the EPA's ozone nonattainment list. Houston-Galveston-Brazoria, Dallas-Fort Worth and Bexar County around San Antonio are all classified Serious under the 2015 ozone standard. Austin is not designated at all. Ozone is still the region's leading air quality issue and the margin against the 70 parts per billion standard is thin, but the honest summary of Austin's air is that it is good most of the year. What actually makes people here miserable never shows up on the AQI: from December through February, Ashe juniper pollen rolls off the Hill Country and a large share of Central Texas spends six weeks feeling like it has flu.

Canairy watches the sensors around your home, your kids' school, and everywhere else you care about, and tells you in plain English when the air changes enough to matter.

Austin's air really is better than the rest of urban Texas

Under the 2015 eight-hour ozone standard of 70 parts per billion, the EPA's Texas nonattainment list covers Houston-Galveston-Brazoria and Dallas-Fort Worth as Serious, and Bexar County as Serious since July 2024. Austin appears nowhere on it. That is not purely luck. The region has worked to stay off the list for years through the Capital Area Council of Governments and the local Clean Air Coalition, on the straightforward reasoning that voluntary measures are cheaper than the federal permitting regime that arrives with a designation.

The margin is genuinely narrow, though. Ozone is repeatedly identified as Central Texas's number one air quality problem, and the area that would be designated if monitors slipped is understood locally to be Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Travis and Williamson counties. A bad ozone day here looks the same as it does anywhere in Texas: hot, sunny, light wind, late afternoon.

Cedar fever is real, and no air quality sensor will show it to you

The Ashe juniper that Texans call mountain cedar grows thickest in the Hill Country west of Interstate 35, right on Austin's doorstep. Male trees release pollen in dense visible clouds, and a cold front with north winds behind it is the classic trigger. That is why the season runs December to February and peaks around mid-January instead of in spring like most pollen.

Here is the part worth knowing if you are watching this page in January. PurpleAir sensors measure PM2.5, meaning particles under 2.5 micrometres across. Ashe juniper pollen grains are roughly 20 to 30 micrometres, about ten times larger, and they are not what the sensor is counting. The AQI here can read Good on a morning when half the city cannot open its eyes. That is not the sensor failing. It is measuring a different thing. For cedar, use a pollen count. For smoke, dust and combustion particles, use this.

Smoke over Austin: the Lost Pines burned in 2011

Central Texas is not wildfire country the way California is, but 2011 showed what a bad drought year can do. The Bastrop County Complex Fire started on 4 September 2011 in the Lost Pines forest immediately east of Austin, when three separate fires merged under the winds trailing Tropical Storm Lee. It burned roughly 32,000 to 34,000 acres, destroyed about 1,600 homes, killed two people and remains the most destructive wildfire in Texas history.

Nothing since has come close, and that is the accurate framing for Austin. Smoke here is an occasional drought-driven event, not a season you plan your summer around. The flip side is that the city has none of the habits a place like Northern California has built up, so it is worth having an alert set before the day you need it.

Austin air quality FAQ

Why is there smoke in Austin today?

Wildfire smoke is not a routine part of Austin's year. When there is smoke it is usually a grass or brush fire during a drought summer, a prescribed burn out in the Hill Country, or haze that has travelled a long way to get here. The one severe case in living memory is the Bastrop County Complex Fire of September 2011, which burned the Lost Pines just east of the city, destroyed around 1,600 homes and killed two people. If you can smell smoke today, the sensors on this page will show it as a PM2.5 spike within minutes, because that is exactly the particle size smoke is made of.

What is the air quality in Austin right now?

This page shows Austin's live AQI, calculated from PurpleAir sensors across the city and updated continuously. In summer, remember that these sensors measure fine particles rather than ozone, so on a hot, still afternoon a Good particle reading does not guarantee low ozone. In winter, remember they do not measure pollen either.

Does this page show cedar pollen counts?

No, and no PM2.5 sensor network can. Ashe juniper pollen grains run around 20 to 30 micrometres across, while PurpleAir sensors report PM2.5, meaning particles under 2.5 micrometres. Cedar is roughly ten times too big to register properly. Use a pollen count for cedar season, which in Austin runs December through February and peaks in mid-January, and use this page for smoke, dust and combustion particles.

Is Austin's air quality actually good?

By Texas standards, yes. Austin is not on the EPA's nonattainment list for the 2015 ozone standard, while Houston-Galveston-Brazoria, Dallas-Fort Worth and Bexar County are all classified Serious. That does not mean there is nothing to watch. Ozone remains the region's leading air quality concern, the margin against the 70 ppb standard is small, and the I-35 corridor puts a lot of traffic exhaust alongside a lot of housing.

What AQI level is unhealthy?

Under the US EPA scale, AQI 0–50 is Good and 51–100 is Moderate. From 101 the air is Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups — kids, older adults, and people with asthma or heart conditions — and above 150 it's Unhealthy for everyone. Canairy translates these numbers into a plain-English verdict, like whether to close the windows or move a workout indoors.

Is Canairy free?

Yes. The Canairy app is free to download and includes live air quality for all your saved places, plain-English verdicts, and free push alerts when the air crosses your threshold. A paid plan adds extras like SMS text alerts.

Get Canairy free on Google Play.