Air Quality in Columbus, Ohio — Live
Live readings from PurpleAir sensors across Columbus — with free alerts the moment smoke drifts in.
AQI 22 from 3 PurpleAir sensors · Trending down · data from PurpleAir
As of , the air quality in Columbus, Ohio is AQI 22 — Good and falling — with PM2.5 at 4.0 µg/m³, the median of 3 live PurpleAir sensors reading 9 to 35. Canairy's verdict: Breathe easy.
For scale, that PM2.5 reading is below the World Health Organization's 24-hour guideline of 15 µg/m³. The WHO figure is a daily average and this is a live reading, so read it as a sense of magnitude rather than a formal exceedance — a brief spike and a bad day are not the same thing. More on the WHO guidelines
Pollen today in Columbus: weeds pollen is the strongest of the three at a moderate level, from Google's pollen forecast. Canairy shows the tree, grass and weed forecast beside the air reading on every plan, including the free one.
Free to download · Live data from PurpleAir & public monitors
Live PurpleAir sensor map for Columbus and Dublin, Westerville, Grove City, Reynoldsburg. Every dot is a real sensor, color-coded by current air quality.
Sensor by sensor in Columbus
The sensors Canairy reads in Columbus agree right now — all 3 sit in the Good band, a 26-point spread — so the city-wide number is a fair description of the whole area today.
| From city center | AQI | Category |
|---|---|---|
| 1.2 mi SSE | 22 | Good |
| 2.5 mi E | 35 | Good |
| 4.9 mi NNW | 9 | Good |
Columbus mostly breathes easy, but the numbers have been sliding. Central Ohio's flat terrain and hot, stagnant summers cook up ground-level ozone on the worst days, drifting Canadian wildfire smoke has twice pushed the whole region into unhealthy air, and the American Lung Association now hands the metro an F for short-term particle pollution.
What Canairy does for Columbus
A clear verdict
Not just a number — a plain-English call for Columbus: open the windows, or keep them shut.
Smoke alerts
A push or text the moment the air crosses your threshold — and again when it clears.
A heads-up before it's bad
Trend alerts catch the air turning, so you can close up the house before the smoke settles in.
Every place you care about
Home, work, the kids' school — across Columbus or across the country, on one screen.
What the air in Columbus is doing next
| When | AQI | Expected air quality | Main pollutant |
|---|---|---|---|
| Today | 40 | Good | ozone |
| Tomorrow | 42 | Good | ozone |
| Monday | 46 | Good | ozone |
| Tuesday | 51 | Moderate | ozone |
| Wednesday | 56 | Moderate | PM2.5 |
Friday, September 4: Scattered showers and thunderstorms will reduce ozone formation over the Columbus region. However, light westerly winds will limit pollutant dispersion and carry regional pollutants into central Ohio, leading to low-Moderate AQI levels. Saturday, September 5: Ozone production will be reduced as scattered thunderstorms develop across central Ohio. Furthermore, northerly winds will aid dispersion. Therefore, AQI levels will be Good. Sunday, northerly to northeasterly winds will gradually carry cleaner air into central Ohio as surface high pressure builds to the north. In addition, slightly cooler temperatures will slow ozone development, keeping AQI levels Good. Labor Day, light easterly winds will reduce dispersion. Additionally, mostly sunny skies will support ozone formation. However, low pollutant carryover from the previous days will yield high-Good AQI levels. Tuesday and Wednesday, southerly to southwesterly winds will transport pollutants into the Columbus region. In addition, partly to mostly sunny skies and temperatures in the mid- to upper-80s will increase ozone formation. These conditions will result in low-Moderate AQI levels on both days.
Forecast from EPA AirNow for the Columbus reporting area. Canairy watches the live sensors against it and tells you when the air actually crosses your threshold, rather than leaving you to check.
Canadian wildfire smoke reaches central Ohio
In June 2023, smoke from wildfires burning in northern Quebec traveled more than 600 miles and settled over Ohio for days. Columbus's Air Quality Index climbed to around 179 — solidly in the Unhealthy range — and the Ohio EPA later flagged June 8, 9, and 29 as the kind of smoke-driven pollution days that ranked among the highest ever measured at the Franklin County Fairgrounds monitor.
It was not a one-off. Canadian smoke has returned in the summers since, and it behaves differently than a local haze. The smoke can ride in overnight on light northeasterly winds, then mix down to street level in the afternoon heat, so the air can turn worse in the middle of the day even when the morning looked clear. That is exactly the kind of shift worth a heads-up before you send kids out to play or head out for a run.
Hot, still summer days build ozone
Ozone is Columbus's slow-burn summer problem. It forms when tailpipe and industrial emissions bake in strong sunlight on hot, windless days, which is why the worst readings cluster in July and August afternoons. On June 12, 2025, Columbus recorded its first ozone day rated Unhealthy for everyone since 2012 — a marker of how a warm, dry year can undo decades of slow improvement.
The Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission issues a Central Ohio Air Quality Alert whenever the AQI is forecast to hit 101 or higher, telling active kids, older adults, and people with asthma or COPD to ease up on outdoor exertion or move it to the cooler morning. MORPC issued eight of those alerts between November 2024 and October 2025, more than double the three from the year before, and the share of Good air days across the region slipped from 65 percent to 55 percent.
Traffic on the downtown split
Columbus is wrapped by the I-270 outerbelt and split down the middle where I-70 and I-71 run together through downtown. That short concurrent stretch is central Ohio's most congested interchange, carrying roughly 150,000 vehicles and 17,000 trucks every day. Diesel exhaust and stop-and-go traffic there are a steady, year-round source of the fine particles and nitrogen oxides that feed both soot and ozone.
This is why the number nearest you matters more than a single citywide figure. Neighborhoods pressed against the freeways — and the near-downtown communities the interchange cuts through — tend to read higher for fine particulate than leafier pockets a few miles out. The American Lung Association's most recent State of the Air gave the Columbus metro an F for short-term particle pollution, ranking it 34th worst in the country with 4.8 unhealthy days a year in Franklin County.
Columbus air quality FAQ
What is the air quality in Columbus right now?
As of September 5, 2026 at 8:10 AM EDT, the air quality in Columbus, Ohio is AQI 22 — Good — with PM2.5 at 4.0 µg/m³, the median of 3 live PurpleAir sensors. Open the windows. Great for outdoor activity.
Why does Columbus get air quality alerts in the summer?
Two reasons. On hot, sunny, stagnant days, traffic and industrial emissions bake into ground-level ozone — Columbus even hit an ozone day rated unhealthy for everyone on June 12, 2025, its first since 2012. On top of that, Canadian wildfire smoke has drifted in during recent summers. The Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission issues an alert whenever the AQI is forecast to reach 101 or higher, and it issued eight of them between November 2024 and October 2025.
Does wildfire smoke really reach Columbus?
Yes. In June 2023, smoke from fires in northern Quebec traveled more than 600 miles and pushed Columbus into Unhealthy air for days, with the Air Quality Index reaching around 179. The Ohio EPA counted several of those June days among the highest pollution readings ever recorded at its Franklin County monitor, and smoke has returned in the summers since.
What the AQI numbers mean
| AQI | Category | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| 0–50 | Good | Open the windows. Great for outdoor activity. |
| 51–100 | Moderate | Sensitive groups may want to take it slower outside. |
| 101–150 | Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups | Kids, elderly, and respiratory conditions stay closer to home. |
| 151–200 | Unhealthy | Skip outdoor exercise. Close windows. |
| 201–300 | Very Unhealthy | Limit time outside. N95 if you must go. |
| 301+ | Hazardous | Health emergency. Stay inside, run filtration if you have it. |
Canairy lets you tighten these bands if you’re more sensitive than the EPA default, so an alert can fire before the official category changes. How to read the Air Quality Index
Where these readings come from
The AQI at the top of this page is the median of the 3 curated PurpleAir sensors Canairy tracks in and around Columbus, with outliers set aside so that one sensor brought indoors — or parked beside a barbecue — cannot set the number for a whole city. Every sensor behind it is listed above with its distance and bearing from the city center. There is no black box here.
In the app, a place you save resolves the same way first. When no neighborhood sensor is reporting it falls back to the nearest EPA AirNow monitor, and anything modeled rather than measured is labelled a regional estimate rather than passed off as a sensor reading. How low-cost sensors compare to regulatory monitors
About Canairy
Canairy is free to download. The free plan covers one saved place with live readings, a plain-English verdict, and push alerts when the air crosses a threshold you choose. Paid plans add more places, faster refreshes, and SMS alerts. It is built by two parents in Sonoma County, California, who got tired of guessing whether it was safe to send the kids outside. Why we built it
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Air quality near Columbus
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