The Air Quality Index (AQI) is an index developed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for reporting daily air quality. It tells you how clean or polluted your air is, and what associated health effects might be a concern for you. The AQI focuses on health effects you may experience within a few hours or days after breathing polluted air. EPA calculates the AQI for five major air pollutants regulated by the Clean Air Act: ground-level ozone, particle pollution (also known as particulate matter), carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide. For each of these pollutants, EPA has established national air quality standards to protect public health. Ground-level ozone and airborne particles are the two pollutants that pose the greatest threat to human health in this country.
Understanding the AQI
The AQI is divided into 6 levels. Each level corresponds to a different level of health concern based on the local air quality. The higher the AQI value, the greater the level of air pollution. The higher the air pollution, the greater the health concern.
|Air Quality||Air Quality Index Values||Health impacts||Corresponding Color|
|Good||0-50||No health impacts are expected when air quality is in this range. ||Green|
|Moderate||51-100||Unusually sensitive people should consider limiting prolonged outdoor exertion.||Yellow|
|Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups||101-150||Active children and adults, and people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should limit prolonged outdoor exertion.||Orange|
|Unhealthy||151-200||Active children and adults and people with respiratory disease such as asthma, should avoid prolonged outdoor exertion: everyone else, especially children, should limit prolonged outdoor exertion.||Red|
|Very Unhealthy||201-300||Active children and adults and people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should avoid all outdoor exertion; everyone else, especially children, should limit outdoor exertion.||Purple|
|Hazardous||301-500||Active children and adults, and people with respiratory disease, such as asthma, should avoid all outdoor exertion, everyone else, especially children, should limit outdoor exertion.||Maroon|
Broward County AQI Summaries
2019 AQI Summary
2018 AQI Summary
Interested in historical AQI Data?
Access our Air Quality Index Summary Archive: 2007-2017.
*About the Data-The air quality data used in these maps and to generate forecasts are collected using either federal reference or equivalent monitoring techniques or techniques approved by the state, local or tribal monitoring agencies. Since the information needed to make maps must be as "real-time" as possible, the data are displayed as soon as practical after the end of each hour. Although some preliminary data quality assessments are performed, the data as such are not fully verified and validated through the quality assurance procedures monitoring organizations use to officially submit and certify data on the EPA AQS(Air Quality System). Therefore, data are used on the AIRNow Web site only for the purpose of reporting the AQI. Information on the AIRNow web site is not used to formulate or support regulation, guidance or any other Agency decision or position.