Right now: Riverside is at 73, moderate.
Is the air safe to breathe in Riverside today?
In Riverside, BreatheCheck reads 73 as Go. The cutoffs: go below 101, keep it short and easy from 101 to 150, move it indoors above 150. These are our own thresholds, drawn on the EPA bands — EPA itself classifies 101–150 as Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups and does not tell you how long to stay out.
Go AQI 0–100
Normal outdoor plans. No change needed.
Short & unloaded AQI 101–150
A 20-minute dog walk, not a 2.5-hour run. Keep it brief and easy.
Don’t go AQI 151+
Move it indoors. Above 200 that becomes everyone, not just sensitive groups.
Above 200 this stops being a personal call: everyone indoors.
Duration and intensity are two separate dials
| Under 20 min | 20–60 min | Over an hour | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | Go | Go | Go |
| Moderate | Go | Go | Go |
| Hard | Go | Go | Go |
Go Every combination lands the same way at this reading — a hard hour is no different from an easy twenty minutes. The two dials separate above 80.
Where people actually draw the line
At 73, this reading is past Asthmatic runner 's line.
All the thresholds people reported, and who reported them
- 60 Asthmatic runnerone runner’s own 156-run log
- 75–100 Daycare / schoolparents and staff in one r/toddlers thread, Aug 2025 — not a published rule
- 100 Parentcommunity-reported, escalating at 150 and 200
- 110 Runnercommunity-reported
If you’re staying in, filter the room you’re actually in
The receptor end of the South Coast basin
Very little of Riverside’s bad air is made in Riverside. The daytime sea breeze moves inland across the South Coast Air Basin all day, carrying emissions from the Los Angeles and Long Beach port complex and the freeway network east through the valleys until they stack against the San Bernardino Mountains. Riverside sits at that inland end. The air arrives having spent hours reacting in sunlight, which is why the ozone peak here comes late in the afternoon rather than at the traffic peaks that produced it.
The PM2.5 has an unusual chemistry. A large share is ammonium nitrate, formed when nitric acid from vehicle and truck exhaust meets ammonia, and the ammonia comes from the dairy and agricultural operations of the Chino Basin immediately upwind. Aircraft measurements during the 2010 CalNex campaign put automobile ammonia across the basin at about 62 metric tons a day and the dairy facilities at somewhere between 33 and 176, far above what the emission inventories had assumed, and found the air downwind of the dairies always thermodynamically favorable for the particle to form. Layered on top is diesel: the warehouse corridor along I-215, SR-60 and I-10 runs freight through this valley continuously.
In the American Lung Association’s 2026 State of the Air, San Bernardino County ranked first in the nation for ozone and Riverside County second. Both counties have less say in that result than the counties fifty miles upwind of them do.
Where this number sits
Of the 121 US metros reporting to us right now, Riverside is number 5 and the highest of the 12 we track in California. The pollutant driving it today is PM2.5.
Nearby metros we also measure, and what they read at the same hour:
- Anaheim, CA — 30 miles away, AQI 46
- Irvine, CA — 31 miles away, AQI 46
- Long Beach, CA — 47 miles away, AQI 50
- Los Angeles, CA — 49 miles away, AQI 60
Where this reading comes from
AirNow’s Metro Riverside CO reporting area, about 3.6 miles from the metro centre.
What has air quality in Riverside actually been?
16 of the 30 days we have recorded so far went above AQI 100.
| Date | Daily max AQI | EPA band | Hours read |
|---|---|---|---|
| 78 | Moderate | 22 | |
| 87 | Moderate | 22 | |
| 147 | Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups | 23 | |
| 101 | Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups | 23 | |
| 154 | Unhealthy | 23 | |
| 66 | Moderate | 22 | |
| 66 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 64 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 84 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 71 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 74 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 84 | Moderate | 24 | |
| 87 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 80 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 74 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 79 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 147 | Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups | 23 | |
| 161 | Unhealthy | 22 | |
| 143 | Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups | 23 | |
| 140 | Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups | 23 | |
| 156 | Unhealthy | 23 | |
| 143 | Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups | 24 | |
| 119 | Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups | 23 | |
| 115 | Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups | 23 | |
| 154 | Unhealthy | 23 | |
| 172 | Unhealthy | 23 | |
| 154 | Unhealthy | 23 | |
| 140 | Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups | 23 | |
| 105 | Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups | 26 | |
| 77 | Moderate | 6 — partial day |
Questions about Riverside
What is the air quality in Riverside right now?
Which monitor does this number come from?
How does Riverside compare with metros nearby?
Does this include pollen?
Put this number in context
Updated