Right now: Charlotte is at 52, moderate.
Is the air safe to breathe in Charlotte today?
In Charlotte, BreatheCheck reads 52 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
Stagnation on a divide, no valley to flush
Charlotte grew on a divide. Thomas Polk built at the crossing of two Native American trading paths on the upland between the Yadkin and the Catawba, and the city that followed has no significant water at its center — the Catawba and its lakes lie several miles west. There is no valley here to pool cold air overnight and no river corridor to flush it in the morning. Air leaves when the wind moves it and stays when the wind stops, which makes the length of a stagnant spell matter more than any single day inside it.
The pollutant that defined this place for two decades was ozone rather than particulate. The Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill area, which crosses the Carolinas state line, was nonattainment for the 1997 eight-hour standard and met it by the June 2011 attainment date, then carried a marginal nonattainment designation under the tighter 2008 standard until EPA determined in 2016 that 2012 through 2014 data showed it attaining that one as well. Mecklenburg County runs its own air program, which is why the monitor named on this page carries a county rather than a state agency.
The mechanism being watched is accumulation. I-85 and I-77 cross here and keep precursors going into the air, and a slow summer high with light winds over several days lets them build instead of clearing. From the ground that reads as haze thickening across successive afternoons.
Where this number sits
Of the 121 US metros reporting to us right now, Charlotte is number 22 and number 2 of the 2 we track in North Carolina. The pollutant driving it today is PM2.5.
Nearby metros we also measure, and what they read at the same hour:
- Columbia, SC — 86 miles away, AQI 54
- Raleigh, NC — 129 miles away, AQI 53
- Charleston, SC — 177 miles away, AQI 59
- Savannah, GA — 218 miles away, AQI 52
Where this reading comes from
AirNow’s Mecklenburg County reporting area, about 0.3 miles from the metro centre.
What has air quality in Charlotte actually been?
1 of the 30 days we have recorded so far went above AQI 100.
| Date | Daily max AQI | EPA band | Hours read |
|---|---|---|---|
| 55 | Moderate | 22 | |
| 41 | Good | 23 | |
| 58 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 71 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 67 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 84 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 48 | Good | 23 | |
| 52 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 56 | Moderate | 22 | |
| 61 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 80 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 101 | Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups | 24 | |
| 84 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 84 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 64 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 56 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 58 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 84 | Moderate | 22 | |
| 67 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 67 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 67 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 56 | Moderate | 24 | |
| 58 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 53 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 67 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 87 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 71 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 62 | Moderate | 23 | |
| 68 | Moderate | 26 | |
| 61 | Moderate | 7 — partial day |
Questions about Charlotte
What is the air quality in Charlotte right now?
Which monitor does this number come from?
How does Charlotte compare with metros nearby?
Does this include pollen?
Put this number in context
Updated