Air Quality in Savannah, Georgia — Live

Live readings from PurpleAir sensors across Savannah — with a plain-English verdict on the ozone and humidity days that shape the coast's air now that the mill is gone.

Live Savannah AQI from nearby PurpleAir sensors loads when this page opens in a browser, along with a live sensor map covering Savannah and Pooler, Tybee Island, Port Wentworth, Richmond Hill.

For most of the twentieth century, Savannah's air had a smell before it had a number. The International Paper mill on the Savannah River - built in the 1930s as Union Bag, later Union Camp - released enough sulfur dioxide that residents nicknamed the odor "the smell of money," since it also meant steady paychecks. A roughly $1 billion scrubber installed in the early 1990s cut most of that sulfur smell, and in August 2025 International Paper announced it was closing the Savannah mill for good, ending a nearly 90-year run. What's left day to day now is a much more ordinary coastal Georgia profile: hot, humid summer afternoons that can build ground-level ozone, and fine-particle readings that drift into Moderate territory on still days rather than the dramatic spikes some other Canairy cities see from wildfire smoke.

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.

The mill that gave Savannah its smell, and its 2025 closure

Union Bag opened the mill on the Savannah River in the 1930s, and it grew into one of the largest kraft paper operations in the country under later owners Union Camp and International Paper. The kraft process released sulfur compounds strong enough that longtime residents could smell the mill for miles, a smell so familiar it earned the nickname "the smell of money" - bad for your nose, good for the paycheck, as the old joke went.

Union Camp spent close to $1 billion on a scrubber in the early 1990s that eliminated most of the sulfur dioxide, a change some credit with helping clear the way for Savannah's modern tourism boom. Then on August 21, 2025, International Paper announced it was closing the Savannah mill along with its Riceboro packaging plant, cutting about 1,100 jobs at facilities that had defined the local economy - and the local air - for nearly 90 years.

Port Wentworth's dust complaints didn't wait for the mill to close

Just northwest of downtown, in Port Wentworth, residents have reported a fine white dust settling on cars, siding, and yards for years, alongside sinus irritation, burning eyes, and coughing that they link to the mill site. Unlike the sulfur smell, which the scrubber mostly solved, the dust complaints kept surfacing well into the 2020s, prompting lab testing to identify exactly what was falling out of the air.

It's a reminder that a single citywide AQI number can miss a real, local problem: the dust and odor concentrated on one side of the river were never something a downtown Savannah reading would show. Canairy reads the sensors near the places you've actually saved, rather than one number for the whole metro.

Away from the mill, it's a Georgia Ports Authority and summer-humidity story

A few miles downriver, the Georgia Ports Authority's Garden City Terminal is one of the largest single container terminals in North America - the port was the third-busiest in the US by container volume as of 2021 - and keeps a steady flow of diesel trucks, cranes, and ships moving around the clock. That's the more ordinary source of particulate and nitrogen oxide pollution most port cities live with, separate from the mill's now-closed sulfur legacy.

The bigger everyday variable for most of Savannah is Chatham County's humid subtropical climate: average relative humidity runs from about 65% to nearly 80% year-round, and hot, stagnant summer afternoons are what build ground-level ozone. The state's Savannah air monitor has recently logged PM2.5 readings in the Moderate range on still days - nothing like a wildfire spike, but enough that Canairy's plain-English verdict is worth checking before an outdoor workout in August.

Savannah air quality FAQ

What is the air quality in Savannah right now?

This page shows the current AQI for Savannah, 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 Savannah stop smelling like a paper mill?

For decades, the International Paper mill (formerly Union Bag and Union Camp) on the Savannah River gave the city its "smell of money" - sulfur dioxide strong enough to notice for miles. A roughly $1 billion scrubber installed in the early 1990s eliminated most of that smell, and in August 2025 International Paper closed the Savannah mill entirely, ending an almost 90-year run and removing the city's biggest historical industrial air source.

Is the air near Port Wentworth still a concern?

Residents in Port Wentworth, next to the mill site, have reported fine white dust and symptoms like sinus irritation and burning eyes for years - a separate, longer-running issue from the sulfur smell that the scrubber addressed. Canairy's sensor map lets you check the reading closest to that specific neighborhood rather than relying on one citywide number.

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 Savannah data come from?

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