SmogRank / History / City race

Cities in Australia, 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 to20 Jan 2024 That day's board

The worst cities in Australia for PM2.5 over the 30 days to 20 Jan 2024: Mount Isa 10.6 µg/m³, Tannum Sands 6.9 µg/m³ and Brisbane 6.0 µg/m³.

  1. 1Mount IsaQueensland10.6
  2. 2Tannum SandsQueensland6.9
  3. 3BrisbaneQueensland6.0
  4. 4NarangbaQueensland5.7
  5. 5Mango HillQueensland5.7
  6. 6Sunshine CoastQueensland5.7
  7. 7CoomeraQueensland5.7
  8. 8Logan CityQueensland5.6
  9. 9EmeraldQueensland5.4
  10. 10Gold CoastQueensland5.2
  11. 11GladstoneQueensland5.2
  12. 12MaryboroughQueensland5.1
  13. 13BlackwaterQueensland5.1
  14. 14MoranbahQueensland5.1
  15. 15TownsvilleQueensland4.8
  16. 16MackayQueensland4.8
  17. 17CairnsQueensland4.8
  18. 18AyrQueensland4.8
  19. 19CanberraAustralian Capital Territory4.0
  20. 20AdelaideSouth Australia3.7

+ 2 more cities, 3.7 µg/m³ and below

Not counted on this day, too few days measured: Grange since 8 Jan 2024 and Toowoomba since 1 Jan 2024.

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 readers for them. Most cities there are missing from this board, not clean. Why.