Air Quality in Yonkers, New York — Live

Live readings from PurpleAir sensors across Yonkers — with free alerts when ozone season or wildfire smoke moves in.

Live Yonkers AQI from nearby PurpleAir sensors loads when this page opens in a browser, along with a live sensor map covering Yonkers and Mount Vernon, Hastings-on-Hudson, Bronxville, Tuckahoe.

Yonkers sits inside one of the most persistent ozone problem areas in the country. The EPA reclassified the New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island region, which includes Westchester County, from Moderate to Serious nonattainment for the 2015 ozone standard, and most summer afternoons here are shaped by that fact. The rest of the year the air is unremarkable, but hot, still days between April and September, and the occasional wildfire smoke drifting down from Canada, are when it actually matters.

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.

Yonkers shares the region's 'Serious' ozone problem

In 2022 the EPA granted a request from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut to reclassify the New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island ozone nonattainment area from Moderate to Serious under the 2015 8-hour ozone standard, one of the strictest classifications in the federal system. Westchester County, and Yonkers within it, falls inside that boundary. New York State's own ozone season runs April through September, and the worst days are hot, sunny, and nearly windless — exactly the conditions that cook vehicle exhaust into ground-level ozone.

Yonkers sits at a genuine highway chokepoint for the lower Hudson Valley: the New York State Thruway (I-87), the Major Deegan Expressway feeding up from the Bronx, the Saw Mill River Parkway, the Cross County Parkway, and the Bronx River Parkway all pass through or along the city. That volume of commuter and truck traffic, combined with pollution that drifts up the Hudson corridor from New York City and northern New Jersey, is the main reason Yonkers' ozone readings climb on summer afternoons even when there is no fire or factory anywhere nearby.

The sky over Yonkers turned orange in June 2023

On June 6 through 8, 2023, smoke from wildfires in Quebec travelled roughly 600 miles south and gave New York City and the lower Hudson Valley, Yonkers included, some of the worst air quality readings in decades. For a stretch that week, monitors ranked the New York City area as having the worst air quality of any major city in the world, and the smoke was thick enough to visibly dim the sun and cool afternoon temperatures. Districts across Westchester cancelled outdoor recess and after-school sports.

That event was not a one-off. Canadian wildfire smoke has become a recurring summer risk for the whole Northeast corridor, and unlike ozone, which builds slowly over a hot afternoon, smoke can arrive overnight and clear just as fast. That is exactly the kind of swing a seasonal average or a once-a-day forecast will miss, and the kind a live sensor reading will not.

Yonkers' seven hills mean neighborhoods do not all breathe the same air

Yonkers is nicknamed the City of Seven Hills — Park, Nodine, Ridge, Cross, Locust, Glen, and Church — and its elevation runs from sea level at the Hudson River up to 416 feet at Sacred Heart. Low-lying neighborhoods near Getty Square, the Saw Mill River corridor, and the streets closest to the Major Deegan and the Bronx border sit right against the traffic corridors described above, while the hilltop neighborhoods get more mixing and generally clearer air on the same afternoon.

That unevenness shows up in the health data, too. A 2024 CDC analysis of pre-pandemic asthma emergency department visits, Asthma Hot Spots in New York, flagged zip codes around Yonkers in Westchester County as hotspots. A single county-wide AQI number cannot tell you which side of that divide your street is on, which is why Canairy reads sensors near the specific places you have actually saved rather than one distant regional monitor.

Yonkers air quality FAQ

What is the air quality in Yonkers right now?

This page shows the current AQI for Yonkers, 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 Yonkers get hazy in summer?

Westchester County sits inside the New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island ozone nonattainment area, which the EPA reclassified from Moderate to Serious for the 2015 ozone standard. On hot, still days between April and September, exhaust from the Thruway, the Major Deegan, and Yonkers' other highway corridors cooks into ground-level ozone, and pollution drifting up the Hudson corridor from New York City adds to it.

Does wildfire smoke ever reach Yonkers?

Yes. In June 2023, smoke from wildfires in Quebec gave the New York City area, including Yonkers, some of its worst air quality in decades, briefly ranking it among the worst of any major city in the world. Canadian wildfire smoke has become a recurring summer risk for the whole region since, and it can arrive and clear within a day.

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 Yonkers data come from?

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