# Memphis, TN Air Quality Index (AQI) Today

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

# Memphis, TN Air Quality Index (AQI) Today

By BreatheCheck Editorial — no named author, deliberately. Why a verifiable pipeline beats a byline →

Right now: Memphis is at 27 , good.

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

Go

Normal outdoor plans. No change needed.

Short & unloaded

A 20-minute dog walk, not a 2.5-hour run. Keep it brief and easy.

Don’t go

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 |

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

— modelled

UV hour by hour in Memphis →

Forecast

— pipeline

### A freight hub that runs at night

By landed weight Memphis International is the second-largest cargo airport in the United States, behind Anchorage, and the FedEx Express hub built around it does the bulk of its sorting between late evening and dawn. Diesel here does not follow a commuter clock. The corridors feeding the airport, and the four road and rail bridges carrying traffic across the Mississippi, stay loaded through hours when most metros have gone quiet, releasing a share of the day’s combustion into the shallow, stable layer that forms overnight rather than into an afternoon that would mix it away.

Terrain gives that nothing to work with and nothing to fight. Downtown stands on the fourth Chickasaw Bluff, 50 to 200 feet above the floodplain, and past the bluff line the ground is flat in every direction. With no basin to hold air, the worst PM2.5 stretches here are stagnation rather than inversion: a slow, humid high sitting over the Delta with nothing to move what the corridors put out.

Fall adds a source from across the river. Rice fields in the Arkansas Delta are burned after harvest under a smoke management plan that is voluntary rather than a permit regime, and satellite work on Mississippi County, Arkansas has tracked the resulting PM2.5 plumes directly. One further complication is jurisdictional. The metro straddles Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas, so a single airshed sits under three state agencies at once.

## Where this number sits

Of the 121 US metros reporting to us right now, Memphis is number 99 and number 2 of the 2 we track in Tennessee. The pollutant driving it today is PM2.5.

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

- Little Rock, AR — 130 miles away, AQI 59

- Jackson, MS — 197 miles away, AQI 53

- Nashville, TN — 197 miles away, AQI 55

- Huntsville, AL — 198 miles away, AQI 56

Why a metro a short drive away reads differently →

Where this reading comes from

—

## Our history for Memphis so far

No series for Memphis yet — ours begin the day a metro enters the pipeline, and we will not draw a shape from a model to fill the gap. Why →

## Questions about Memphis

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

AQI 27 — Good. That is number 99 of the 121 US metros reporting to us at this hour.

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

At this hour: Little Rock 59, Jackson 53, Nashville 55, Huntsville 56. 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 Memphis → · Why apps disagree →

## Put this number in context

On this page

Alert me when Memphis turns

One email when it crosses your threshold.

Updated 17 Aug 2026, 11:49 UTC