SmogRank / History / City race

Cities in United States, worst air first, day by day

Each measured city's average over the 30 days to every day since January 2023, worst first. Find your own city to follow it through the race, or keep to one country.

CountriesCities
The 30 days to28 Jan 2023 That day's board

The worst cities in United States for PM2.5 over the 30 days to 28 Jan 2023: Badger 30.1 µg/m³, New Holland 18.7 µg/m³ and Roosevelt 18.2 µg/m³.

  1. 1BadgerAlaska30.1
  2. 2New HollandPennsylvania18.7
  3. 3RooseveltUtah18.2
  4. 4West FargoNorth Dakota16.5
  5. 5FairbanksAlaska16.5
  6. 6Saint PaulMinnesota16.0
  7. 7La CrosseWisconsin15.3
  8. 8MinneapolisMinnesota15.1
  9. 9SunnysideWashington15.0
  10. 10ShakopeeMinnesota14.9
  11. 11RedfordMichigan14.8
  12. 12PhoenixArizona14.6
  13. 13Apple ValleyMinnesota14.5
  14. 14YakimaWashington14.5
  15. 15ThorntonColorado13.9
  16. 16KalamazooMichigan13.8
  17. 17Fort LauderdaleFlorida13.4
  18. 18SandersvilleGeorgia13.3
  19. 19DearbornMichigan13.3
  20. 20ClintonIowa13.2

+ 578 more cities, the next at 13.2 µg/m³

Days missing from the source archive fall in this window, so fewer countries are counted.

30 days7 days
GoodModerateSensitive groupsUnhealthyVery unhealthyHazardousWHO 24-hour guideline, 15 µg/m³Fades where it stood: not counted that day

A city's number is its average over the 30 days, shown only when 21 of them were measured (5 of 7 on the 7-day race), the same minimum as the 30- and 7-day boards. A city whose monitors go quiet fades out where it stood rather than sliding down, so a gap never reads as cleaner air. Some large countries are thin or missing because their monitors' licences don't allow reuse. How we rank.

Not covered: the government monitoring networks of China and Turkey, which publish only on their own websites. We are building the reader for China's network. Turkey's network doesn't answer requests from outside the country, so we can't read it. Most cities there are missing from this board, not clean. Why.