Right now: Detroit is at 40, good.
Is the air safe to breathe in Detroit today?
In Detroit, BreatheCheck reads 40 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
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
A line drawn through Wayne County
When EPA designated this area nonattainment for sulfur dioxide in 2013, it did not draw the boundary around the metro. The north edge followed Michigan Avenue and then Woodward out to the Ontario border, the west edge ran down I-94 and I-75, and the south edge was the Monroe County line — a strip of Wayne County along the river, with most of the metro outside it.
The sources sit inside that strip. Marathon’s refinery on Fort Street, rated near 140,000 barrels a day, is in it. So is the 48217 ZIP code, long described as the most polluted in Michigan, along with well over a hundred permitted emitting sites across southwest Detroit. The Ambassador Bridge, which carries more of the US-Canada merchandise trade by value than any other crossing, moves upward of 10,000 commercial vehicles on a typical weekday through the same few neighborhoods.
Terrain redistributes none of it. This is flat lake plain around 600 feet between Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie, with no basin to pool cold air overnight and no ridge to stop a plume, so wind direction on the day decides which neighborhood gets the worst of it. The regulatory chapter closed in April 2026, when the area was redesignated to attainment for that sulfur dioxide standard. The stacks, the bridge and the truck lanes stayed where they were.
Where this number sits
Of the 121 US metros reporting to us right now, Detroit is number 62 and the highest of the 2 we track in Michigan. The pollutant driving it today is O3.
Nearby metros we also measure, and what they read at the same hour:
- Cleveland, OH — 90 miles away, AQI 37
- Fort Wayne, IN — 136 miles away, AQI 31
- Grand Rapids, MI — 140 miles away, AQI 38
- Columbus, OH — 164 miles away, AQI 34
Where this reading comes from
AirNow’s Southeast reporting area, about 19.8 miles from the metro centre.
What has air quality in Detroit actually been?
2 of the 30 days we have recorded so far went above AQI 100.
| Date | Daily max AQI | EPA band | Hours read |
|---|---|---|---|
| 42 | Good | 22 | |
| 59 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 52 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 60 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 52 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 61 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 71 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 52 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 39 | Good | 23 | |
| 55 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 56 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 63 | Moderate | 24 | |
| 108 | Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups | 23 | |
| 147 | Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups | 23 | |
| 73 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 57 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 62 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 59 | Moderate | 22 | |
| 61 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 71 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 53 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 69 | Moderate | 24 | |
| 73 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 61 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 79 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 59 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 46 | Good | 23 | |
| 55 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 42 | Good | 26 | |
| 56 | Moderate | 7 — partial day |
Questions about Detroit
What is the air quality in Detroit right now?
Which monitor does this number come from?
How does Detroit compare with metros nearby?
Does this include pollen?
Put this number in context
Updated