# Jacksonville, FL Air Quality Index (AQI) Today

> Source: https://breathecheck.com/air-quality/us/florida/jacksonville/
> Live AQI for Jacksonville, FL with a plain verdict — go, short and unloaded, or don't go — plus the monitor behind it and our own hourly record.

# Jacksonville, FL Air Quality Index (AQI) Today

Readings collected automatically every hour; text written and checked by BreatheCheck Editorial . How this page is made →

Right now: Jacksonville is at 57 , moderate .

## Is the air safe to breathe in Jacksonville today?

In Jacksonville, BreatheCheck reads 57 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 runner one runner’s own 156-run log

- 75–100 Daycare / school parents and staff in one r/toddlers thread, Aug 2025 — not a published rule

- 100 Parent community-reported, escalating at 150 and 200

- 110 Runner community-reported

EPA classifies 101–150 as Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups. That is an attributed classification, not a verdict on your lungs specifically.

If you’re staying in, filter the room you’re actually in

A portable HEPA unit or a Corsi-Rosenthal box — one builder put theirs at about $130 for a 12×14 bedroom. We don’t default to a MERV-13 swap in whole-house HVAC: it can restrict airflow, and the safe version needs a static-pressure check first.

Dominant pollutant

PM2.5

UV index

0.6 low · modelled

UV hour by hour in Jacksonville →

Days above AQI 100

0 of 30 days we have recorded

The record, day by day →

### Peat smoke northwest, mill sulfur up the coast

Jacksonville sits three feet above sea level on a coastal plain with nothing in it to sort or slow whatever crosses. Which quarter the wind is in decides a bad-air day here, and the two quarters that matter both point outside the city.

The Okefenokee Swamp begins about thirty miles northwest, across the Georgia line, with the Osceola National Forest west of the city. Fires in that country burn peat as well as surface fuel, so they smolder for weeks or months and keep releasing smoke at ground level long after the flame front has stopped moving. The West Mims fire of 2017 dropped ash on downtown Jacksonville from that distance. Add the prescribed burning north Florida and south Georgia land managers run through the late-winter dry season, and PM2.5 becomes the pollutant behind most of the metro’s worst readings, on a timescale that resembles nothing about a fast-moving western smoke event.

The second quarter is up the coast, and there the question is smell rather than number. The kraft mills on Talleyrand Avenue gave the city a decades-long reputation for it. The last mill inside Jacksonville now runs on recycled fiber without the kraft process, but two mills still operate at Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island, thirty-odd miles northeast. Sulfur compounds register in the nose at concentrations far below anything that would move a particulate reading, and that mismatch is the one this metro produces most often.

## Where this number sits

Of the 121 US metros reporting to us right now, Jacksonville is number 13 and number 2 of the 4 we track in Florida. The pollutant driving it today is PM2.5 .

Nearby metros we also measure, and what they read at the same hour:

- Savannah, GA — 125 miles away, AQI 52

- Orlando, FL — 125 miles away, AQI 34

- Tampa, FL — 171 miles away, AQI 47

- Charleston, SC — 198 miles away, AQI 59

Why a metro a short drive away reads differently →

Where this reading comes from

AirNow’s Jacksonville reporting area, about 0.4 miles from the metro centre.

## What has air quality in Jacksonville actually been?

Daily maximum, our own readings. 30 days since 2026-08-16; nothing back-filled. Why we keep our own →

0 of the 30 days we have recorded so far went above AQI 100.

| Date | Daily max AQI | EPA band | Hours read |

| 2026-09-14 | 59 | Moderate | 22 |

| 2026-09-13 | 55 | Moderate | 23 |

| 2026-09-12 | 54 | Moderate | 23 |

| 2026-09-11 | 55 | Moderate | 23 |

| 2026-09-10 | 94 | Moderate | 23 |

| 2026-09-09 | 43 | Good | 22 |

| 2026-09-08 | 41 | Good | 23 |

| 2026-09-07 | 53 | Moderate | 23 |

| 2026-09-06 | 45 | Good | 23 |

| 2026-09-05 | 54 | Moderate | 23 |

| 2026-09-04 | 52 | Moderate | 23 |

| 2026-09-03 | 59 | Moderate | 24 |

| 2026-09-02 | 40 | Good | 23 |

| 2026-09-01 | 43 | Good | 23 |

| 2026-08-31 | 37 | Good | 23 |

| 2026-08-30 | 67 | Moderate | 23 |

| 2026-08-29 | 68 | Moderate | 23 |

| 2026-08-28 | 59 | Moderate | 22 |

| 2026-08-27 | 65 | Moderate | 23 |

| 2026-08-26 | 63 | Moderate | 23 |

| 2026-08-25 | 71 | Moderate | 23 |

| 2026-08-24 | 75 | Moderate | 24 |

| 2026-08-23 | 60 | Moderate | 23 |

| 2026-08-22 | 57 | Moderate | 23 |

| 2026-08-21 | 61 | Moderate | 23 |

| 2026-08-20 | 69 | Moderate | 23 |

| 2026-08-19 | 93 | Moderate | 23 |

| 2026-08-18 | 74 | Moderate | 23 |

| 2026-08-17 | 75 | Moderate | 26 |

| 2026-08-16 | 61 | Moderate | 6 — partial day |

## Questions about Jacksonville

**What is the air quality in Jacksonville right now?**

AQI 57 — Moderate. That is number 13 of the 121 US metros reporting to us at this hour.

**Which monitor does this number come from?**

Jacksonville, about 0.4 miles from the metro centre. One instrument reports for the whole metro, so the side farthest from it is the least well described.

**How does Jacksonville compare with metros nearby?**

At this hour: Savannah 52, Orlando 34, Tampa 47, Charleston 59. A gap that size over that distance usually means different terrain, traffic or wind rather than a broken sensor.

**Does this include pollen?**

No. The AQI covers PM2.5 , PM10 , ozone, NO₂, SO₂ and CO. A high-pollen day can read clean here and still put someone in bed.

What the number means, band by band → · UV in Jacksonville → · Why apps disagree →

## Put this number in context

On this page

Alert me when Jacksonville turns

One email when it crosses your threshold.

Updated 14 Sep 2026, 22:12 UTC