BreatheCheck LIVE Get alerts

Reno, NV UV Index Today

Modelled for · GMT-7

What is the UV index in Reno right now?

4.7 Moderate

EPA suggests shade around midday, a hat and sunglasses.

Today's peak is 7.2 (High) at about 1pm local time.

When is UV strongest in Reno today?

UV in Reno peaks at 7.2 (High) around 1pm local time (GMT-7). It stays at 6 or above — the high band — for 3 hours, roughly 12pm to 3pm. UV is 3 or above for 6 hours.

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

Reno today, in numbers

Latitude
39.5°N — 58 of 121 from the north
Today's peak
7.2 (High) — 52 of 121 nationally
Peak arrives
1pm local (GMT-7)
At or above 6
3 hours, 12pm to 3pm
At or above 3
6 hours, 10am to 4pm

The window from 12pm to 3pm is the practical answer for Reno 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 →

Rain shadow dryness stacked on 4,500 feet

Two things raise the numbers here, and they work independently of each other. The first is the Sierra Nevada standing immediately west, stripping Pacific moisture out of the air before it arrives. Reno averages about seven and a half inches of precipitation a year, a small fraction of what falls on the western slope of the same range a short distance away. Few days get clouded down, winter included, when a city at the same latitude on the eastern side of the country would spend much of the season under a deck.

The second is height. The valley floor lies around 4,500 feet, so the light arrives through measurably less atmosphere than at a coastal site, and that one runs every day of the year rather than most of them.

Surface reflection is a local complication rather than a citywide one. The Carson Range on the western edge of town holds snow long after the valley floor is bare, so the snow-albedo effect the WHO describes — fresh snow reflecting up to about 80 percent of incident UV — applies to a spring afternoon thirty minutes uphill far more than to the same afternoon downtown.

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.

Sacramento, CA 112 mi · 38.6°N peak 6.8 Stockton, CA 135 mi · 38.0°N peak 6.7 Oakland, CA 179 mi · 37.8°N peak 6.7

What does Reno’s UV index mean today?

4.7 is Moderate. EPA suggests shade around midday, a hat and sunglasses. Today Reno also reaches 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 Reno 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 Reno

What is the UV index in Reno today?

4.7 right now (Moderate), peaking at 7.2 around 1pm local time. UV stays at 6 or above for 3 hours, from about 12pm to 3pm. This is a modelled value, not a ground measurement.

When is UV strongest in Reno 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.

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

Updated