Air Quality in Charlotte, North Carolina — Live

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

Live Charlotte AQI from nearby PurpleAir sensors loads when this page opens in a browser, along with a live sensor map covering Charlotte and Concord, Gastonia, Monroe, Rock Hill.

Uptown Charlotte sits on a long rise between Sugar Creek and Irwin Creek, around 750 feet up in the Carolina Piedmont. There is no basin to trap air here and no mountain wall to hold it, and it shows in the record: Charlotte's air is fine most of the year and its one recurring problem is summer ozone. Mecklenburg and its neighbouring counties were designated nonattainment for the 1997 ozone standard from 2004 and again for the 2008 standard, and were redesignated to attainment on 2 January 2014 and 27 August 2015 respectively. Under the current 2015 ozone standard Charlotte has not been designated nonattainment at all. In 2025 the highest AQI recorded anywhere in the metro was 97 — still Moderate — on 8 July.

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.

Summer ozone is the one thing Charlotte's air still does badly

North Carolina forecasts ozone from 1 March through 31 October and PM2.5 year-round, which tells you where the state expects the trouble. Charlotte's regulatory monitors are spread across Mecklenburg — Garinger High School on Eastway Drive, Remount on Remount Road, University Meadows on Pavilion Boulevard — plus Rockwell out in Rowan County and the York Landfill site across the South Carolina line. Garinger read AQI 150 on 18 July 2023, and University Meadows read 156 on 27 August 2024, which was the worst air day the metro had in three years. Both were ozone days.

The 2025 season was extraordinarily quiet, and not because anything changed in Charlotte. North Carolina recorded no daily exceedances of the ozone standard anywhere in the state, only the second time that has happened since 2000 — the other being 2020. The state had averaged nine exceedances a year from 2014 to 2024. The reason was weather: July was the second-warmest on record but so humid that ozone could not build, with Raleigh setting its highest July average dew point since 1946, and August turned unusually cool and cloudy, including a run of ten straight below-average days in Charlotte and a 5 August high of just 69 degrees.

Charlotte's worst smoke day came from the mountains, not from Canada

On Wednesday 16 November 2016, smoke from wildfires burning in western North Carolina put Mecklenburg and thirteen surrounding North Carolina counties, plus twenty-five South Carolina counties along and west of Interstate 77, under a Code Red air quality alert — unhealthy for everyone, not just sensitive groups. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools asked teachers to keep students indoors as much as possible. Tom Mather of the state Division of Air Quality put it plainly at the time: "You don't need to not go outdoors all day, but do need to limit your exertion," specifically warning people off running, biking and tennis. The fires behind it burned at least 80,000 acres across five southeastern states between 23 October and 9 December 2016, during a drought so deep that Asheville Regional Airport measured only a trace of rain in the month to 15 November.

Canadian smoke does reach Charlotte, but so far it has arrived thinner. During the worst of the 2023 season the Rockwell monitor in Rowan County read AQI 122 on 29 June and the Remount monitor read 119 on 17 July, both on PM2.5. In 2025, despite Canada having one of its worst fire years on record, North Carolina saw few smoke intrusions at all, because the upper-level winds steered the plumes north toward the Great Lakes and the Upper Midwest instead.

Two honest ways of describing the same air

EPA's own metro-level tally for Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia is reassuring. 2023: 145 Good days, 212 Moderate, 8 Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups, none Unhealthy. 2024: 152 Good, 209 Moderate, 4 Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups, 1 Unhealthy. 2025: 168 Good, 197 Moderate, and nothing above Moderate all year. The median AQI has sat between 52 and 53 across all three.

The American Lung Association's 2025 State of the Air is less cheerful about the same city, giving Charlotte a D for ozone — 79th worst of 228 metros, at about 2.7 unhealthy ozone days a year — a C for short-term particle spikes, and a failing grade for year-round particle pollution, 59th worst of 204 metros. Both readings are correct. The EPA counts are about days: how often the air crosses a line. The failing annual particle grade is about the long-run average level of fine particles you breathe on ordinary days, which in Charlotte sits above the federal standard even though almost none of those days are individually alarming.

Charlotte air quality FAQ

Why is there smoke in Charlotte today?

Usually it is not smoke. The flat white haze over the Piedmont on a hot summer afternoon is humidity and ozone, and ozone is invisible and odourless. When Charlotte genuinely has smoke, it has historically come from the west rather than the north: the November 2016 wildfires in the western North Carolina mountains put the whole region under a Code Red, the most serious air quality alert the city has had. Canadian smoke has arrived lighter — AQI 122 at the Rockwell monitor on 29 June 2023 was the peak. The tell is PM2.5, which is what the sensors on this page measure. Smoke pushes it up; ozone does not.

What is the air quality in Charlotte right now?

This page shows the live AQI for Charlotte, read from PurpleAir sensors across the city and updated continuously. On an ozone afternoon the metro is not uniform — the highest reading has come variously from Eastway Drive, from Pavilion Boulevard in University City, and from Rowan County — so it is worth saving the particular addresses you care about rather than watching one citywide number.

Is Charlotte's air actually bad?

Mostly no, and it is getting better. In 2025 EPA logged 168 Good days and 197 Moderate days for the Charlotte metro, with nothing above Moderate all year and a peak AQI of 97. Where Charlotte does badly is the long-run average of fine particles: the American Lung Association's 2025 report gives the metro a failing grade for year-round particle pollution, 59th worst of 204 metros, and a D for ozone. So the honest summary is a city with very few alarming days and a slightly elevated everyday baseline.

When is ozone worst in Charlotte?

Late afternoon on hot, sunny, light-wind days between roughly June and late August. North Carolina forecasts ozone from 1 March to 31 October, but the actual peaks cluster in high summer — 18 July in 2023, 27 August in 2024. Humid, cloudy or breezy weather usually kills it, which is why the very wet 2025 summer produced no exceedances anywhere in the state. Morning workouts are consistently safer than evening ones during those months.

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.