Air Quality in Jacksonville, Florida — Live

Live readings from PurpleAir sensors across Jacksonville — with free alerts when summer ozone climbs.

Live Jacksonville AQI from nearby PurpleAir sensors loads when this page opens in a browser, along with a live sensor map covering Jacksonville and Orange Park, Atlantic Beach, Jacksonville Beach, Fleming Island.

For most of the last two decades, Jacksonville's air has actually been good. The American Lung Association gives Duval County a B grade for both ozone and short-term particle pollution, and on an average day the AQI here sits in the clean 30s and 40s. The exception is the stretch of hot, humid afternoons from roughly May through September, when the same heat and sun that make the St. Johns River so pleasant also cook vehicle and power-plant exhaust into ground-level ozone — Jacksonville logs around 196 days a year above 80°F, more than enough warm sunshine to matter.

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.

Jacksonville used to smell like money

From 1938 into the late 1990s, two paper mills operated on Talleyrand Avenue along the St. Johns River, alongside chemical and turpentine plants that processed the mills' byproducts. On a windy day the sulfurous stench could blanket the entire city, and it became such a fixture of local life that Mayor Hans Tanzler, who ran the city from 1967 to 1979, defended the industry by calling it simply "the smell of money."

That changed after WJXT's 1985 documentary "The Smell of Money" estimated the mills were releasing roughly 100,000 tons of pollution a year, which helped elect Tommy Hazouri mayor in 1987 on a "Stop the Stench" platform. Hazouri demoted the city's pollution-control chief, added eight enforcement staff, and pushed fines against holdout polluters through the courts. Combined with tightening regulation, both major mills had shut down by the late 1990s, and the odor that once defined Jacksonville's national reputation faded within a decade.

The stench is gone, but the Northside plant is still running

The JEA Northside Generating Station sits on the St. Johns River near Interstate 295 and State Road 105 — much the same Northside industrial stretch where the old paper mills once stood. Built starting in 1966 and upgraded in 2002, it still burns coal and petroleum coke across two 297.5-megawatt units alongside a third unit that runs on fuel oil or natural gas, for combined capacity above 1,300 megawatts.

Unlike the old mill stench, the plant's output is largely invisible: filings tracked by the Sierra Club put its nitrogen oxide emissions at roughly 910 tons a year. NOx doesn't smell like anything, but it reacts with summer sun to form ground-level ozone, which is exactly the pollutant that actually drives Jacksonville's worst air-quality days now. In 2022, the Sierra Club publicly pushed JEA for a firm coal-retirement date, arguing the aging units would need hundreds of millions of dollars in new pollution controls to keep running legally.

Summer heat, not smoke, is the season to watch here

Jacksonville doesn't have the wildfire seasons that define air quality out West — this is a real ozone story instead. Duval County was formally designated EPA ozone nonattainment from 1992 to 1994 before being upgraded to maintenance status in 1995, and while cleaner vehicles and tighter rules have kept it there since, the underlying ingredients — heat, sun, and tailpipe and power-plant exhaust — haven't gone anywhere.

Jacksonville's afternoon thunderstorms, which roll through most summer days from roughly May to September, cut both ways: the rain scrubs particles out of the air, but the heat and humidity that build up beforehand are exactly the conditions ozone favors. That's why the worst ozone hours tend to land in the sunny early-to-mid afternoon, before the day's storm breaks — worth knowing before you send kids out to play or head out for an afternoon run in July.

Jacksonville air quality FAQ

What is the air quality in Jacksonville right now?

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

Why did Jacksonville used to smell so bad?

From 1938 into the late 1990s, two paper mills on Talleyrand Avenue, along with nearby chemical and turpentine plants, released a sulfurous odor that could blanket the whole city on a windy day. A 1985 WJXT documentary, "The Smell of Money," helped elect Mayor Tommy Hazouri in 1987 on a "Stop the Stench" platform of aggressive enforcement, and both mills had closed by the late 1990s.

Does Jacksonville still have industrial air pollution?

Some. The JEA Northside Generating Station, on the same Northside stretch of the St. Johns River where the old paper mills once stood, still burns coal and petroleum coke and emits an estimated 910 tons of nitrogen oxides a year. That NOx doesn't smell like the old mill stench, but it's a key ingredient in the ground-level ozone that now drives Jacksonville's worst summer air days.

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 Jacksonville data come from?

Readings come from PurpleAir's network of laser particle sensors across Jacksonville 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.