Air Quality in Long Beach, California — Live

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

Live Long Beach AQI from nearby PurpleAir sensors loads when this page opens in a browser, along with a live sensor map covering Long Beach and Signal Hill, Lakewood, Seal Beach, Carson.

Long Beach lives next door to the second-busiest container port in the United States, and that shows up in the air. The Port of Long Beach and the I-710 freeway that feeds it put diesel exhaust through the western side of the city every day — more than 20,000 trucks a day on stretches of the 710, over twice the Los Angeles freeway average. The port has cut deeply since 2005, with diesel particulates down more than 90 percent by its 2022 emissions inventory, but the Westside and Wrigley neighborhoods still start from a worse baseline than the rest of the city, and wildfire smoke from elsewhere in Los Angeles County arrives on top of that.

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.

Why the west side of town breathes differently

The I-710 corridor is one of the most studied pollution corridors in California. USC's Neighborhood Data for Social Change project found that the twenty neighborhoods along the 710, running from the ports north toward central Los Angeles, average 36 percent more particulate matter than Los Angeles County as a whole, and account for roughly 20 percent of all particulate emissions in Southern California. Residents there average 62 asthma-related emergency room visits per 10,000 people; in neighborhoods that are more than 70 percent white, the figure is 30.

That burden is concentrated, not citywide. When the container backlog peaked in 2021 at 79 ships waiting at anchor, the California Air Resources Board estimated the extra cargo movement was adding about 14.5 tons of nitrogen oxides a day on top of a port complex already putting out roughly 100 tons a day. A citywide average is not much use if you live near the 710.

The port has cleaned up a lot, and it isn't finished

The San Pedro Bay ports' Clean Air Action Plan has produced real numbers. Measured against a 2005 baseline, the Port of Long Beach's 2022 emissions inventory showed diesel particulates down 91 percent, nitrogen oxides down 63 percent and sulfur oxides down 97 percent, while cargo volume rose 36 percent. California's At-Berth rule now requires container, cruise and refrigerated cargo ships to plug into shore power or capture their emissions instead of idling their auxiliary engines.

The targets ahead are zero-emission cargo handling equipment by 2030 and zero-emission drayage trucks by 2035. Whether those hold is contested, and in the meantime the ports still emit roughly 23 tons of nitrogen oxides and half a ton of fine particles a day. Shore power addresses a ship's auxiliary engines at berth — it does not touch the trucks, the yard equipment, the trains, or a ship's main engines while it is moving.

It isn't only the port

Long Beach sits on top of an oil field. A February 2026 analysis counted more than 750 active wells and 378 idle wells across Long Beach and Signal Hill, plus more than 2,900 already plugged. The idle derricks cut a diagonal line across the city through Signal Hill toward the Traffic Circle, with more southeast of Recreation Park through the Los Cerritos Wetlands.

Uncapped wells can leak benzene and formaldehyde, and in Los Angeles County 86 percent of idle wells sit within a kilometre of a school, hospital, playground or park. Worth knowing, and worth being clear about: neighbourhood air sensors pick up general particulate conditions, but they do not measure benzene or other specific gases.

Long Beach air quality FAQ

Why is there smoke in Long Beach today?

Usually it has drifted in from a fire somewhere else in Los Angeles County rather than anything burning nearby. In January 2025 the city issued its own air quality warning as smoke from the Palisades, Eaton and Hurst fires pushed south, with PM2.5 across central and southwest Los Angeles County running from Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups up to Hazardous. In November 2018 the Woolsey and Hill fires put Long Beach under a smoke advisory from eighty miles away. If there is no fire in the news, haze on a still day is more likely traffic and port emissions sitting under an inversion.

What is the air quality in Long Beach right now?

This page shows the current AQI for Long Beach, calculated from PurpleAir sensors across the city and updated continuously. That matters more here than in most places: the Westside near the 710 and the port often reads differently than Belmont Shore or Bixby Knolls on the same afternoon. The map below shows every live sensor.

Is the air worse in West Long Beach than the rest of the city?

The evidence says yes. West Long Beach sits between the port complex and the I-710, and reporting in 2025 found life expectancy there runs about eight years shorter than in wealthier neighbourhoods farther from the ports. Community advocates have described the Westside as carrying among the state's highest asthma rates. This is exactly why a citywide average is not much use if you live near the freeway.

Does the port still pollute if the ships are plugged in?

Shore power addresses one source — a ship's auxiliary engines while it sits at berth. It does not touch the trucks moving containers off the terminal, the yard equipment, the trains, or the ships' main engines while they are moving. That is why the Clean Air Action Plan sets separate 2030 and 2035 deadlines for cargo handling equipment and drayage trucks.

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.