Move workouts to the morning
Ozone peaks on hot, sunny afternoons. Mornings are usually cleaner.
Ozone guide →Includes Crestview, Fort Walton Beach and Destin · EPA monitor readings, 2021 to 2025 (ozone only) · 212,000 people
For today's air and tomorrow's forecast, check AirNow by ZIP code.
No bad-air days from 2021 to 2025. Okaloosa County is tied with 7 other Florida counties for the fewest bad-air days of the 38 with monitors.
Monitors here recorded no bad-air days in 9 years of daily readings since 2016. Every month is clear.
The worst day since 2016 was May 10, 2017: AQI 87, from ozone.
Ozone is the only pollutant measured here. Monitors here recorded no bad-air days since 2016. Monitors here don't measure fine particles, so smoky days aren't in these counts.
CDC's model estimates about 0.0 days a year with high fine particles at the county's worst spot, 2018 to 2022. See the estimates on the map
The CDC's model counts bad-air days at the county's worst spot, from monitors and satellites. Particles (brown) fill the inside of the ring and ozone (blue) the outside.
| Month | Fine particles | Ozone |
|---|---|---|
| January | 0 | 0 |
| February | 0 | 0 |
| March | 0 | 0.1 |
| April | 0 | 1.0 |
| May | 0 | 1.5 |
| June | 0 | 1.4 |
| July | 0.1 | 0.5 |
| August | 0 | 0.4 |
| September | 0 | 0.6 |
| October | 0 | 0.5 |
| November | 0 | 0 |
| December | 0 | 0 |
Monitors here track ozone, which builds on hot afternoons, so timing helps. They don't track smoke, so it's worth having a clean room ready too.
Ozone peaks on hot, sunny afternoons. Mornings are usually cleaner.
Ozone guide →AirNow posts an air quality forecast by ZIP code, usually the day before.
AirNow →Shut the windows and run an air purifier sized for the room.
Choosing a purifier →For today's reading and tomorrow's forecast, check AirNow by ZIP code. Its fire and smoke map adds smoke plumes.
Smoky days are rare here, so a purifier is optional. If you want one for wildfire season anyway, see the 3 models we'd buy, each with a verified smoke rating.
Bad-air days each year. The striped part is days unhealthy for everyone, over AQI 150. No year from 2021 to 2025 had a bad-air day.
| Year | Bad-air days | Over 150 |
|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 1 | 0 |
| 2010 | 3 | 0 |
| 2011 | 2 | 0 |
| 2012 | 0 | 0 |
| 2013 | 0 | 0 |
| 2014 | 1 | 0 |
| 2015 | 0 | 0 |
| 2016 | 0 | 0 |
| 2017 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | 0 | 0 |
| 2023 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024 | 0 | 0 |
| 2025 | 0 | 0 |
Bad-air days a year, 2021 to 2025. Florida counties with monitors averaged about 1 bad-air day a year, weighted by population.
Nearest counties with a full report: Escambia County, FL (under 1 bad-air day a year), Baldwin County, AL (under 1 bad-air days a year).
From 2021 to 2025, monitors in Okaloosa County recorded almost no bad-air days a year with an AQI above 100, which is unhealthy for sensitive groups or worse. No year from 2021 to 2025 had a bad-air day.
Monitors here recorded no bad-air days since 2016. Monitors here don't measure fine particles, so smoky days aren't in these counts.
AirNow, run by the EPA and its partners, shows the current AQI and tomorrow's forecast for your ZIP code. Its fire and smoke map adds smoke plumes. On a typical day the AQI in Okaloosa County is about 36, which is good, fine for everyone. Bad days are rare here, so check it when wildfire smoke is in the news.
Day counts come from the EPA's county air quality summaries, which take the worst reading across a county's monitors each day. Monitors here reported on about 333 days a year from 2021 to 2025. A county is large, and your street can be cleaner or worse. CDC's model, which estimates every county from monitors and satellites, gives the worst spot in Okaloosa County almost no high-particle days and almost no high-ozone days a year from 2018 to 2022.
Sources: EPA AirData county AQI summaries (2000 to 2025) and daily county AQI (2016 to 2025); CDC Environmental Public Health Tracking Network modeled PM2.5 and ozone (2001 to 2022). Updated November 8, 2026.