Death Valley, California Air Quality

An Air Quality Alert is issued by the National Weather Service on behalf of a state or local agency when pollution is expected to reach a level that harms health. An Air Stagnation Advisory means the air will not move enough to clear what is already in it.

None are in force near Death Valley right now. All California warnings.

Good

Nearest monitor

Death Valley NP, 19 miles away (site 060270101)

Index measured

36 · Good

Measured at

Sun, 9:00 AM PDT

Ozone

38 ppb

Reporting area

Death Valley National Park, CA, 19 miles away

Reported by

National Park Service

Area index

36 · Good

Measured, not modeled. AirNow observations are preliminary until the operating agency certifies them, which happens months later.

National Park Service's own forecast for Death Valley National Park, written by a forecaster rather than read off a model.

NOAA’s National Air Quality Forecast Capability, bias-corrected against monitors, for this town’s own coordinate. The worst hour ahead is an index of 49, Good, around Sun, 11:00 PM PDT, from the run issued Sun, 5:00 AM PDT. This is a model, not a measurement.

Fine particles in micrograms per cubic meter, ozone in parts per billion as an 8-hour average. The index for each hour is EPA’s: the ozone figure is already the 8-hour average the ozone index is defined on, and the particle figure is run through EPA’s NowCast, which is how an hourly PM2.5 concentration becomes an index.

NOAA’s analysts have not drawn smoke over Death Valley in satellite imagery today.

NOAA’s model forecasts near-surface smoke peaking at 0.7 µg/m³ around Sat, 8:00 PM PDT.

Smoke on the radar over Death Valley

Good

Air quality is satisfactory, and air pollution poses little or no risk.

Who is affected

Nobody is expected to be affected.

What to do

It is a good day to be outside.

Index range

0 to 50

Category descriptions are the Environmental Protection Agency’s own.

What these numbers are. An index beside a monitor’s name is a measurement, published hourly by AirNow and preliminary until the operating agency certifies it. A category for today or tomorrow is a state or local agency forecaster’s own forecast for a reporting area. An hourly index is NOAA’s air quality model on a five-kilometer grid, not a reading from any instrument. Where a town has no monitor within reach, only the model figures appear, and the page says so.

The nearest towns with a page of their own, closest first.

• Pahrump, NV46 miles
• Beatty, NV46 miles
• Searles Valley, CA47 miles
• Ridgecrest, CA64 miles
• China Lake Acres, CA67 miles
• Fort Irwin, CA68 miles
• Inyokern, CA69 miles
• Sandy Valley, NV72 miles

Observations and daily forecasts from AirNow, the US Environmental Protection Agency’s program with NOAA, the National Park Service, NASA, tribal, state and local agencies. Hourly forecasts from NOAA’s National Air Quality Forecast Capability. Smoke analysis from NOAA’s Hazard Mapping System. Alerts from the National Weather Service. Index categories and breakpoints are EPA’s, as revised in 2024.