Air Quality in Little Rock, Arkansas — Live

Live readings from PurpleAir sensors across Little Rock — with free alerts when summer ozone climbs into unhealthy territory.

Live Little Rock AQI from nearby PurpleAir sensors loads when this page opens in a browser, along with a live sensor map covering Little Rock and North Little Rock, Sherwood, Jacksonville, Maumelle.

Most days, Little Rock's air is unremarkable in the best way, but the American Lung Association's 2026 State of the Air report gave Pulaski County a failing grade for year-round particle pollution, its worst showing in eight years, even though this is not a wildfire town. The real story here is summer heat and traffic, not smoke: the city sits where three of Arkansas's landforms and three interstates converge, and on the hot, still days of June through September that combination cooks up ozone and lets vehicle exhaust settle instead of blowing through.

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.

A failing grade for particle pollution, without a fire in sight

The American Lung Association's 2026 State of the Air report ranked the Little Rock-North Little Rock metro area 17th worst out of 211 U.S. metros for year-round particle pollution, tied with Philadelphia, and handed Pulaski County a failing grade, its worst year for the measure in eight years. Ground-level ozone fared better: the county earned a C for the seventh consecutive year, with the metro ranked 110th worst out of 226 areas nationally and only about two unhealthy ozone days a year on average.

None of that is driven by wildfire smoke the way it is in the West. The Lung Association and local meteorologists point instead to vehicle exhaust and extreme heat: central Arkansas's particle and ozone problems both track the same summer stretch, when tailpipe emissions sit under a lid of hot, humid, slow-moving air instead of clearing out. Statewide, the same report found more than 113,000 Arkansas children breathing unhealthy air on the days readings spike.

The city sits where three landforms and three interstates meet

Little Rock occupies the spot where the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains to the west, the flat Delta of the Mississippi River Valley to the east, and the rolling plains that stretch toward Texas all come together along the Arkansas River. That geography means the city sees nearly every air mass that crosses the middle of the country, and it also means there is no coastal breeze or mountain pass reliably flushing the valley out on a hot, calm day.

Layered on top of that is traffic: I-30, I-40, I-440, and I-630 all converge in and around Little Rock and North Little Rock, with stretches of I-30 alone carrying up to 85,000 vehicles a day. On summer afternoons, when the wind drops and the heat and humidity climb, that exhaust has nowhere to go, which is exactly the combination the region's Ozone Action Days program was built to warn people about.

Ozone Action Days are Little Rock's actual warning system

Since the 1990s, Metroplan, the region's planning agency, has run Ozone Action Days for central Arkansas in partnership with the Arkansas Division of Environmental Quality, the Department of Health, and the state transportation department. Covering Pulaski, Faulkner, Lonoke, and Saline counties, the program forecasts each day from May 1 through September 30 and issues a Code Orange advisory when ozone is expected to cross the federal 8-hour standard of 0.070 parts per million.

That is not a rare event: a Code Orange ozone advisory went out for the metro on August 26, 2024, one of several most summers. On those days, health officials tell kids, older adults, and anyone with asthma or another respiratory condition to cut back on outdoor activity, and ask everyone else to drive less so the next day's air does not get worse.

Little Rock air quality FAQ

What is the air quality in Little Rock right now?

This page shows the current AQI for Little Rock, 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 Little Rock get a failing grade for air pollution?

The American Lung Association's 2026 State of the Air report gave Pulaski County a failing grade for year-round particle pollution — 17th worst out of 211 U.S. metro areas, tied with Philadelphia, and the worst showing here in eight years. The report points to vehicle exhaust and extreme summer heat rather than wildfire smoke as the main drivers, since central Arkansas's hot, humid, and often still summer air lets both particles and ozone build up instead of clearing out.

What are Ozone Action Days in central Arkansas?

Ozone Action Days is a public health program run by Metroplan for Pulaski, Faulkner, Lonoke, and Saline counties every summer from May through September. On days when hot, calm weather is expected to push ozone above the federal standard, officials issue a Code Orange advisory — as they did on August 26, 2024 — and ask residents, especially kids and people with asthma, to limit outdoor activity and cut back on driving.

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 Little Rock data come from?

Readings come from PurpleAir's network of laser particle sensors across Little Rock and surrounding towns like North Little Rock and Sherwood, 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.