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.
The worst cities in United States for PM2.5 over the 30 days to 25 Oct 2023: Birmingham 16.8 µg/m³, Hernando 15.3 µg/m³ and Little Rock 13.8 µg/m³.
- 1BirminghamAlabama16.8
- 2HernandoMississippi15.3
- 3Little RockArkansas13.8
- 4AnaheimCalifornia13.7
- 5Imperial BeachCalifornia13.7
- 6FontanaCalifornia13.2
- 7ClevelandMississippi13.0
- 8ComptonCalifornia12.9
- 9HanfordCalifornia12.8
- 10Jurupa ValleyCalifornia12.7
- 11BartlettTennessee12.6
- 12FresnoCalifornia12.3
- 13Los AngelesCalifornia12.1
- 14BakersfieldCalifornia11.9
- 15RiversideCalifornia11.7
- 16Baton RougeLouisiana11.5
- 17SchrieverLouisiana11.5
- 18HattiesburgMississippi11.5
- 19JacksonMississippi11.3
- 20TurlockCalifornia11.2
+ 750 more cities, the next at 11.1 µg/m³
Not counted on this day, too few days measured: Crescent City since 6 Oct 2023.
Cities counted each 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.