Air Quality in St. George, Utah — Live

Live readings from PurpleAir sensors across St. George — with free alerts when dust or smoke moves in.

Live St. George AQI from nearby PurpleAir sensors loads when this page opens in a browser, along with a live sensor map covering St. George and Washington, Santa Clara, Ivins, Hurricane.

St. George's air is clear most of the year — this stretch of southwestern Utah gets close to 300 sunny days, and the desert setting usually keeps things clean. The exceptions are real and specific to this valley: spring windstorms that lift dust off the surrounding desert floor and dry washes, construction dust from one of the fastest-growing metro areas in the country, and, in recent fire seasons, smoke drifting down from burns in the Pine Valley Mountains and Dixie National Forest just north of the city.

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.

Spring is blowing-dust season in St. George

St. George sits in a high desert valley where the Colorado Plateau meets the Great Basin, ringed by the Beaver Dam Mountains to the west and the Pine Valley Mountains to the north. According to the Utah Geological Survey, the state's dust storms peak from March through May, driven by cold fronts sweeping across dry lakebeds and desert basins, with a smaller second wave in the fall.

Washington County's dry wash bottoms and disturbed rangeland add to the mix, so a windy spring afternoon can push PM10 well above where it sits on a calm summer morning — with no fire anywhere nearby. It's a quieter problem than a wildfire plume, but a strong dust event can still cut visibility along I-15 and send fine particles into neighborhoods on the valley's west side.

Rapid growth has brought a stranger kind of dust problem: Valley Fever

St. George has been one of the fastest-growing metro areas in the country, and all that new construction is disturbing Mojave Desert soil that had sat undisturbed for generations. That soil can carry Coccidioides, the fungus behind Valley Fever, and a 2021 University of Utah study found the illness is more than eight times as common in southern Utah as in the rest of the state.

The problem isn't confined to St. George proper. In nearby Hurricane, residents living next to active building sites have described dust so constant that cleaning barely makes a difference. Utah epidemiologist BreAnn Osborne has said the region where the fungus can survive is expanding as the climate warms, pushing beyond the traditional St. George area — a reminder that not every local air problem here is about smoke or ozone.

Wildfire smoke reaches St. George too, even from nearby canyons

The city itself isn't surrounded by heavy timber, but the Pine Valley Mountains and Dixie National Forest, roughly 30 miles north, do burn. The Forsyth Fire started from a lightning strike in June 2025, grew past 13,600 acres in the Pine Valley area after strong winds pushed it on June 19, destroyed more than a dozen homes and outbuildings, and closed the Pine Valley Recreation Area for the rest of the season.

Utah's Division of Air Quality runs a monitoring station in Washington County tracking PM2.5, PM10, and ozone, and it flags wildfire smoke as the main seasonal risk for particle-pollution spikes. Smoke doesn't have to start close to town, either — fires burning across Arizona, Nevada, or California can drift into the valley on the wrong wind, the same as it does across the rest of the Southwest.

St. George air quality FAQ

What is the air quality in St. George right now?

This page shows the current AQI for St. George, 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 does St. George get dusty in the spring?

St. George sits in a high desert valley where dry washes, disturbed rangeland, and nearby desert basins can all become dust sources. Utah's dust storms peak from March through May as cold fronts sweep through, and a windy spring afternoon can push PM10 noticeably higher than a calm summer morning, even with no fire anywhere nearby.

What is Valley Fever, and does it affect St. George's air?

Valley Fever is a fungal infection caused by inhaling spores from disturbed desert soil, and a 2021 University of Utah study found it is more than eight times as common in southern Utah as elsewhere in the state. It's tied to the region's rapid construction growth rather than smoke or ozone, which is why Canairy's particle readings are worth checking even on days that don't look hazy or smoky.

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.

Where does Canairy's St. George data come from?

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

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