Bakersfield, CA UV Index Today
What is the UV index in Bakersfield right now?
5.3 Moderate
EPA suggests shade around midday, a hat and sunglasses.
Today's peak is 8.3 (Very High) at about 1pm local time.
When is UV strongest in Bakersfield today?
UV in Bakersfield peaks at 8.3 (Very High) around 1pm local time (GMT-7). It stays at 6 or above — the high band — for 4 hours, roughly 11am to 3pm. UV is 3 or above for 7 hours.
Bakersfield today, in numbers
- Latitude
- 35.4°N — 86 of 121 from the north
- Today's peak
- 8.3 (Very High) — 20 of 121 nationally
- Peak arrives
- 1pm local (GMT-7)
- At or above 6
- 4 hours, 11am to 3pm
- At or above 3
- 7 hours, 10am to 5pm
The window from 11am to 3pm is the practical answer for Bakersfield today. Nationally today the spread runs 11.4 in Hilo (20°N) to 1.3 in Fargo (47°N). Why latitude and the clock decide this →
The valley walls trap air, not sunlight
Bakersfield occupies the closed southern end of the San Joaquin Valley, where the San Emigdio Mountains form the valley’s southern wall and the Tehachapis separate the floor from the Mojave beyond. That enclosure is the reason its particulate readings behave the way they do. It has almost no bearing on the UV number. Ridges change what the wind does with a pollutant; they do not change the angle at which sunlight arrives, and the air column overhead is a sea-level column, a few hundred feet of correction at most.
Winter is where the city parts company with its own arithmetic. At 35.4 degrees north the December noon sun stands about 31 degrees above the horizon, essentially what Albuquerque gets on the same date. Albuquerque spends that month under a desert sky. Bakersfield anchors the southern end of the tule fog belt, a ground-level radiation fog that forms on calm nights after the first substantial rains and has historically reached more than 400 miles north from here toward Red Bluff. Once it settles on the valley floor it can hold for days without lifting, and a fogged-in noon reads near the bottom of the scale whatever the geometry allows.
The conventional fog season is bracketed November through March. Outside it, measurable rain is rare here, and the sky over the valley floor stays open for months at a stretch.
Nearest metros we model
What does Bakersfield’s UV index mean today?
5.3 is Moderate. EPA suggests shade around midday, a hat and sunglasses. Today Bakersfield also reaches Very High at its peak — a different band from the one it is in right now, which is why the hour matters as much as the day.
Modelled, not measured
The UV figures for Bakersfield are computed by the Copernicus atmosphere model, not read off an instrument here — unlike the AQI on our air-quality pages, which comes from a regulatory monitor. Cloud is where a UV model is weakest. What that means in practice →
Questions about UV in Bakersfield
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