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.
The worst cities in Australia for PM2.5 over the 30 days to 19 Feb 2024: Mackay 6.4 µg/m³, Gladstone 6.3 µg/m³ and Blackwater 6.2 µg/m³.
- 1MackayQueensland6.4
- 2GladstoneQueensland6.3
- 3BlackwaterQueensland6.2
- 4Tannum SandsQueensland6.2
- 5EmeraldQueensland5.9
- 6BrisbaneQueensland5.9
- 7Sunshine CoastQueensland5.9
- 8MaryboroughQueensland5.8
- 9NarangbaQueensland5.7
- 10MoranbahQueensland5.7
- 11Mango HillQueensland5.7
- 12Logan CityQueensland5.7
- 13CoomeraQueensland5.7
- 14TuggeranongAustralian Capital Territory5.4
- 15Gold CoastQueensland5.4
- 16CanberraAustralian Capital Territory5.4
- 17ToowoombaQueensland5.2
- 18CairnsQueensland5.2
- 19Mount IsaQueensland4.9
- 20TownsvilleQueensland4.8
Not counted on this day, too few days measured: Sydney since 12 Feb 2024, Ayr since 8 Feb 2024, Adelaide since 22 Jan 2024 and Grange since 8 Jan 2024. Days missing from the source archive fall in this window, so fewer countries are counted.
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 readers for them. Most cities there are missing from this board, not clean. Why.