# Miami, FL Air Quality Index (AQI) Today > Source: https://breathecheck.com/air-quality/us/florida/miami/ > Live AQI for Miami, FL with a plain verdict — go, short and unloaded, or don't go — plus the monitor behind it and our own hourly record. # Miami, 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: Miami is at 59 , moderate . ## Is the air safe to breathe in Miami today? In Miami, BreatheCheck reads 59 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 Miami → Days above AQI 100 1 of 28 days we have recorded The record, day by day → ### Two import seasons, one flushing wind Almost nothing that produces a bad reading in Miami is made in Miami. The metro sits on a flat limestone shelf a few feet above sea level with the Atlantic immediately east, and the persistent easterly flow off that water carries I-95 exhaust and the port’s cruise and cargo emissions west and inland before they accumulate. The local floor stays low for a metro this size. What lifts it arrives from elsewhere, on two separate seasonal schedules. June through August belongs to the Saharan Air Layer, a mass of dry, dust-laden African air that crosses several thousand miles of Atlantic and passes over South Florida. It hazes the sky, colors the sunsets and raises PM2.5 with no fire and no combustion source anywhere in the state. A Miami-Dade monitor registering it is registering a desert on another continent. The dry season, roughly October into spring, supplies the other. Sugarcane grown south of Lake Okeechobee is burned before harvest through those months, and those fields sit north and west of the metro rather than upwind of it. Their smoke reaches the coast only when the easterly flow slackens or backs around, which is the same condition under which the corridor stops flushing itself. The load turns up on precisely the days the ventilation is not there to move it, which is why the dry-season events read worse than the acreage alone would suggest. ## Where this number sits Of the 121 US metros reporting to us right now, Miami is number 11 and the highest 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: - Orlando, FL — 205 miles away, AQI 34 - Tampa, FL — 206 miles away, AQI 47 - Jacksonville, FL — 328 miles away, AQI 57 - Savannah, GA — 439 miles away, AQI 52 Why a metro a short drive away reads differently → Where this reading comes from AirNow’s Miami reporting area, about 7.8 miles from the metro centre. ## What has air quality in Miami actually been? Daily maximum, our own readings. 28 days since 2026-08-16; nothing back-filled. Why we keep our own → 1 of the 28 days we have recorded so far went above AQI 100. | Date | Daily max AQI | EPA band | Hours read | | 2026-09-14 | 61 | Moderate | 23 | | 2026-09-13 | 51 | Moderate | 23 | | 2026-09-12 | 69 | Moderate | 8 — partial day | | 2026-09-11 | 68 | Moderate | 23 | | 2026-09-10 | 52 | Moderate | 9 — partial day | | 2026-09-09 | 55 | Moderate | 22 | | 2026-09-08 | 53 | Moderate | 23 | | 2026-09-07 | 41 | Good | 23 | | 2026-09-06 | 43 | Good | 23 | | 2026-09-05 | 54 | Moderate | 23 | | 2026-09-04 | 46 | Good | 23 | | 2026-09-03 | 53 | Moderate | 24 | | 2026-09-02 | 52 | Moderate | 23 | | 2026-09-01 | 54 | Moderate | 23 | | 2026-08-31 | 50 | Good | 23 | | 2026-08-30 | 42 | Good | 10 — partial day | | 2026-08-28 | 55 | Moderate | 22 | | 2026-08-27 | 56 | Moderate | 23 | | 2026-08-26 | 53 | Moderate | 23 | | 2026-08-25 | 63 | Moderate | 23 | | 2026-08-24 | 70 | Moderate | 24 | | 2026-08-23 | 68 | Moderate | 8 — partial day | | 2026-08-21 | 64 | Moderate | 23 | | 2026-08-20 | 95 | Moderate | 24 | | 2026-08-19 | 115 | Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups | 23 | | 2026-08-18 | 97 | Moderate | 3 — partial day | | 2026-08-17 | 95 | Moderate | 22 | | 2026-08-16 | 96 | Moderate | 7 — partial day | ## Questions about Miami **What is the air quality in Miami right now?** AQI 59 — Moderate. That is number 11 of the 121 US metros reporting to us at this hour. **Which monitor does this number come from?** Miami, about 7.8 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 Miami compare with metros nearby?** At this hour: Orlando 34, Tampa 47, Jacksonville 57, Savannah 52. 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 Miami → · Why apps disagree → ## Put this number in context On this page Alert me when Miami turns One email when it crosses your threshold. Updated 14 Sep 2026, 22:12 UTC