Highlands, North Carolina 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 Highlands right now. All North Carolina warnings.

Good

Nearest monitor

BRYSON, 30 miles away (site 371730002)

Index measured

37 · Good

Measured at

Sun, 5:00 PM EDT

Fine particles

6 µg/m³

Ozone

41 ppb

Reporting area

Macon County, NC, 14 miles away

Reported by

North Carolina DEQ - Division of Air Quality

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

North Carolina DEQ - Division of Air Quality's own forecast for Macon County, 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 44, Good, around Mon, 1:00 PM EDT, from the run issued Sun, 8:00 AM EDT. 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 Hazard Mapping System analysts drew medium smoke over Highlands in satellite imagery today (Sun, 8:00 AM EDT to Sun, 11:00 AM EDT). That is smoke seen from above; it is not always smoke at ground level.

NOAA’s model forecasts near-surface smoke peaking at 0.8 µg/m³ around Mon, 9:00 AM EDT.

Smoke on the radar over Highlands

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.

• Franklin, NC14 miles
• Mountain City, GA14 miles
• Clayton, GA17 miles
• Cullowhee, NC18 miles
• Walhalla, SC21 miles
• Sylva, NC22 miles
• Westminster, SC27 miles
• Seneca, SC29 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.