BreatheCheck LIVE Get alerts

Long Beach, CA UV Index Today

Modelled for · GMT-7

What is the UV index in Long Beach right now?

5.5 High

EPA suggests shade between 10am and 4pm, plus a shirt and sunscreen.

Today's peak is 8.8 (Very High) at about 1pm local time.

When is UV strongest in Long Beach today?

UV in Long Beach peaks at 8.8 (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.

Local time, midnight to midnight. Bar colour is the EPA UV band, never restyled.

Long Beach today, in numbers

Latitude
33.8°N — 96 of 121 from the north
Today's peak
8.8 (Very High) — 9 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 Long Beach 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 →

Late Clearing Shifts The Daily Peak

The Palos Verdes Peninsula shelters San Pedro Bay from the west, and Long Beach fronts that water at the seaward corner of the Los Angeles Basin. For morning cloud, that is the wrong corner. Stratus lifts from the inland edge of the basin first and holds longest over the water, so through May and June the deck is routinely gone across inland Orange County while Long Beach is still under it, and clearing here can run to midday or past it.

That changes the shape of the day rather than its ceiling. Because the deck goes late, the highest reading Long Beach actually records often lands in the early or middle afternoon instead of at solar noon. Ten or fifteen miles inland, the same day peaks on schedule.

The beach adds less than it is usually credited with. The World Health Organization’s reflectance figures put dry sand at about 15 percent of incident ultraviolet returned upward and sea foam at about 25, but open water at under 10 percent, the same order as grass or bare soil. The bay is not a mirror; the sand is a modest one. Either way, the number on this page counts the downward beam and nothing that bounces.

Nearest metros we model

UV changes with latitude, not with a city boundary, so a neighbour a hundred miles north reads differently for a reason.

Anaheim, CA 17 mi · 33.8°N peak 8.8 Los Angeles, CA 20 mi · 34.0°N peak 8.5 Irvine, CA 22 mi · 33.7°N peak 8.8

What does Long Beach’s UV index mean today?

5.5 is High. EPA suggests shade between 10am and 4pm, plus a shirt and sunscreen. Today Long Beach 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.

The scale is open-ended: 11 is where the named bands stop, not the maximum. All five bands, with the EPA guidance for each →

Modelled, not measured

The UV figures for Long Beach 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 Long Beach

What is the UV index in Long Beach today?

5.5 right now (High), peaking at 8.8 around 1pm local time. UV stays at 6 or above for 4 hours, from about 11am to 3pm. This is a modelled value, not a ground measurement.

When is UV strongest in Long Beach today?

Around 1pm local time (GMT-7), not at noon — solar noon drifts across a timezone and daylight saving moves it later on the clock.

Is this measured or modelled?

Modelled. The figures come from the Copernicus atmosphere model via Open-Meteo, unlike the AQI on our air-quality pages, which is read from an EPA regulatory monitor. Cloud cover is where a UV model is weakest.

Long Beach air qualityThe AQI, from a regulatory monitor rather than a model UV across the USWhere Long Beach sits against every metro we track

Updated