Air Quality in Durham, North Carolina — Live

Live readings from PurpleAir sensors across Durham — with free alerts the moment summer ozone or drifting wildfire smoke pushes the air past healthy.

Live Durham AQI from nearby PurpleAir sensors loads when this page opens in a browser, along with a live sensor map covering Durham and Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough, Cary.

Durham's air is good most of the year, and it isn't a wildfire town — there's no local fire season here the way there is out West. The real story on a Durham forecast is ground-level ozone: hot, humid, stagnant Piedmont afternoons that turn traffic and industrial emissions into a Code Orange Air Quality Action Day, called jointly by the National Weather Service and NC DEQ for the Triangle and Triad.

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.

Durham's real air problem is summer ozone, not smoke

Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill was one of the North Carolina metro areas designated nonattainment for ground-level ozone after the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, alongside Charlotte-Gastonia and Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point. The state didn't get the Triangle redesignated to attainment for the 8-hour ozone standard until 2007, when North Carolina's request — submitted that June — was approved by the EPA.

Exiting nonattainment on paper didn't change the weather that causes the problem. Hot, sunny, low-wind days still cook vehicle and industrial NOx into ozone across the Piedmont, and NC DEQ and the National Weather Service still call a Code Orange Air Quality Action Day for the Triangle and Triad when the forecast calls for it — usually several times a summer, with advice to cut back on prolonged outdoor exertion if you're in a sensitive group.

When Canadian wildfire smoke does reach Durham

It isn't only home-grown ozone. In the summer of 2023, smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted far enough south to push a Code Orange Air Quality Alert across central North Carolina, Durham included — thousands of miles from the fires themselves. Local coverage at the time described the smoke as continuing to affect the region's air quality into late July.

That kind of event is still the exception here, not the rule, and it doesn't follow a predictable calendar the way ozone season does. But it's now a real enough occurrence that a clear, haze-free sky in Durham isn't automatic proof the air is clean — fine smoke particles can be present well before or after anything is visible.

A flat Piedmont city with an industrial past, now built around highways and RTP

Durham sits in the Piedmont at roughly 400 feet, mostly flat with some rolling hills, which means it doesn't get the trapped winter inversions that pool smoke and cold air in mountain valleys. Its pollution history is more industrial: tobacco warehouses and mills downtown, and Duke University's own coal-fired West Campus steam plant, which the university converted to gas as part of a 2007 pledge to reach carbon neutrality by 2024.

Today the more relevant local sources are the highway corridors — I-40, I-85, and the NC 147 freeway — that carry commuter and freight traffic through and around Research Triangle Park. That traffic is exactly the NOx source that turns into ozone on the hot, still afternoons described above, which is why Durham's air quality story runs through its roads as much as its weather.

Durham air quality FAQ

What is the air quality in Durham right now?

This page shows the current AQI for Durham, calculated from PurpleAir sensors across the city and Research Triangle Park and updated continuously. The map below shows every live sensor, so you can check the reading closest to your own neighborhood.

Why does Durham get ozone action days in summer?

Hot, humid, sunny afternoons with little wind let vehicle and industrial emissions cook into ground-level ozone across the Piedmont. The National Weather Service and NC DEQ call a Code Orange Air Quality Action Day for the Triangle and Triad when that's forecast, usually asking sensitive groups to skip prolonged outdoor exertion that afternoon.

Does wildfire smoke ever reach Durham?

Yes, occasionally. Smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted into central North Carolina in the summer of 2023, pushing a Code Orange Air Quality Alert across Durham and the rest of the Triangle even though the fires themselves were thousands of miles away. It isn't a yearly certainty the way it is on the West Coast, but it's no longer rare either.

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.

Where does Canairy's Durham data come from?

Readings come from PurpleAir's network of laser particle sensors across Durham and surrounding towns, cross-referenced with government monitors and the Google Air Quality API. You can see every sensor behind your numbers on the live map - there's no black box.

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.