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Raleigh, NC UV Index Today

Modelled for · GMT-4

What is the UV index in Raleigh right now?

0.5 Low

EPA describes low UV as needing no protection for most people.

Today's peak is 7.3 (High) at about 1pm local time.

When is UV strongest in Raleigh today?

UV in Raleigh peaks at 7.3 (High) around 1pm local time (GMT-4). It stays at 6 or above — the high band — for 3 hours, roughly 12pm to 3pm. UV is 3 or above for 7 hours.

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

Raleigh today, in numbers

Latitude
35.8°N — 84 of 121 from the north
Today's peak
7.3 (High) — 51 of 121 nationally
Peak arrives
1pm local (GMT-4)
At or above 6
3 hours, 12pm to 3pm
At or above 3
7 hours, 10am to 5pm

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

Canopy shade against diffuse sky UV

What is structural about ultraviolet in Raleigh is ground cover. Oak and pine close over much of the older grid, and a canopy changes what a person underneath it receives without changing what the monitor reports, because the figure on this page is an open-sky measurement.

Shade here is a reduction rather than a shutoff. A large share of the ultraviolet reaching the ground on a clear day arrives as diffuse skylight, scattered out of the whole dome instead of coming straight from the solar disk, and that share keeps arriving through gaps and from every direction at once after the direct beam has been broken up. Deep shade cuts the dose. It does not remove it.

The geometry underneath all of that is ordinary and shared. Raleigh sits a little over 300 feet up where the Piedmont grades into the coastal plain, too low for elevation to register, and half a degree of latitude from Charlotte, which moves the noon sun by half a degree and nothing else. The seasonal shape is the Piedmont’s: a plateau rather than a peak, the June noon sun holding near 78 degrees for weeks either side of the solstice, so two clear midsummer days a fortnight apart differ very little. The sharp movement in this number belongs to spring and fall.

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.

Charlotte, NC 129 mi · 35.2°N peak 7.4 Virginia Beach, VA 166 mi · 36.9°N peak 6.6 Columbia, SC 182 mi · 34.0°N peak 7.6

What does Raleigh’s UV index mean today?

0.5 is Low. EPA describes low UV as needing no protection for most people. Today Raleigh 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 Raleigh 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 Raleigh

What is the UV index in Raleigh today?

0.5 right now (Low), peaking at 7.3 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 Raleigh today?

Around 1pm local time (GMT-4), 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.

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

Updated