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Oklahoma City, OK UV Index Today

Modelled for · GMT-5

What is the UV index in Oklahoma City right now?

2 Low

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

Today's peak is 8.2 (Very High) at about 1pm local time.

When is UV strongest in Oklahoma City today?

UV in Oklahoma City peaks at 8.2 (Very High) around 1pm local time (GMT-5). It stays at 6 or above — the high band — for 4 hours, roughly 12pm to 4pm. UV is 3 or above for 7 hours.

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

Oklahoma City today, in numbers

Latitude
35.5°N — 85 of 121 from the north
Today's peak
8.2 (Very High) — 24 of 121 nationally
Peak arrives
1pm local (GMT-5)
At or above 6
4 hours, 12pm to 4pm
At or above 3
7 hours, 10am to 5pm

The window from 12pm to 4pm is the practical answer for Oklahoma City 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 →

Why the Peak Arrives After One O'Clock

Oklahoma City’s ultraviolet high point comes later in the day than the clock implies. The city sits near 97.5 degrees west but keeps Central time, whose reference meridian runs at 90 degrees, roughly 400 miles to the east. Solar noon therefore falls around half past twelve on standard time and close to half past one once daylight saving is in effect. The strongest hour of a July afternoon here is genuinely mid-afternoon.

What changes month to month is the air, not the geometry. Spring is the windy season on the southern plains, with April the windiest month of the Oklahoma City year, and soil lifted off dry fields to the west can put enough dust aloft to visibly dull an otherwise cloudless sky. Late spring brings the deepest convective cloud of the year to central Oklahoma, where a storm anvil takes the index from high to nothing inside an hour and then lets it back up once the cell moves east.

The ground neither adds nor subtracts. At roughly 1,200 feet on open rolling prairie the city is too low for altitude to register and too flat for anything to shade an afternoon or bounce light back into it, so the daily curve stays close to raw clear-sky geometry and everything that bends it comes out of the sky.

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.

Tulsa, OK 98 mi · 36.1°N peak 8.2 Fort Worth, TX 190 mi · 32.7°N peak 8.7 Dallas, TX 190 mi · 32.8°N peak 8.6

What does Oklahoma City’s UV index mean today?

2 is Low. EPA describes low UV as needing no protection for most people. Today Oklahoma City 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 Oklahoma City 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 Oklahoma City

What is the UV index in Oklahoma City today?

2 right now (Low), peaking at 8.2 around 1pm local time. UV stays at 6 or above for 4 hours, from about 12pm to 4pm. This is a modelled value, not a ground measurement.

When is UV strongest in Oklahoma City today?

Around 1pm local time (GMT-5), 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.

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

Updated