Bad Air Days in Beltrami County, Minnesota: 4 a Year
4 bad air days a year
About the middle of monitored US counties. Ranked 277 of 996 monitored counties, where 1 is worst.
What makes them bad: mostly particles: smoke and dust (90% particle days).
Which months to watch
- J
- F
- M
- A
- M
- J
- J
- A
- S
- O
- N
- D
Most bad days here fall in July and August and May. Averaged over 2016 to 2025.
Is a purifier worth it here?
- Particles (wildfire smoke, dust) cause enough bad days here to matter. A HEPA purifier sized to your bedroom removes them; run it with windows shut on bad days.
- Upgrade the furnace or AC filter to MERV 13 so the whole house is filtered, not just one room.
The record for Beltrami
The worst recent year was 2025, with 17 bad days on 363 monitored days.
| Date | AQI | Main pollutant |
|---|---|---|
| 2021-07-20 | 283 | PM2.5 |
| 2021-07-29 | 203 | PM2.5 |
| 2019-07-06 | 191 | PM2.5 |
| 2025-06-02 | 191 | PM2.5 |
| 2021-07-30 | 182 | PM2.5 |
Most days, not the worst ones
Across 3,550 monitored days from 2016 to 2025, the air in Beltrami County rated Good on 85% of them, more often than the 72% typical of monitored counties, and Moderate on 14%. The median day sat at AQI 29; one day in ten went above 56.
The pollutant setting the AQI on an ordinary day here:
- fine particles (PM2.5)91%3,242 days
- ozone9%308 days
Year by year
| Year | Days monitored | Good | Moderate | Over 100 | Over 150 | Median AQI | Highest AQI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025* | 363 | 287 | 59 | 17 | 9 | 36 | 191 |
| 2024 | 366 | 308 | 54 | 4 | 1 | 36 | 177 |
| 2023 | 360 | 247 | 107 | 6 | 1 | 27 | 156 |
| 2022 | 346 | 318 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 23 | 65 |
| 2021 | 341 | 281 | 51 | 9 | 4 | 29 | 283 |
| 2020 | 359 | 318 | 41 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 76 |
| 2019 | 352 | 307 | 43 | 2 | 1 | 26 | 191 |
| 2018 | 352 | 309 | 42 | 1 | 0 | 31 | 106 |
| 2017 | 353 | 307 | 46 | 0 | 0 | 27 | 77 |
| 2016 | 358 | 331 | 27 | 0 | 0 | 24 | 75 |
| 2015 | 362 | 326 | 34 | 2 | 0 | 23 | 131 |
| 2014 | 88 | 73 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 23 | 69 |
*2025 may be a partial year in EPA's file.
Elsewhere in Minnesota
- Blue Earth County10/yr
- Saint Louis County5/yr
- Wright County5/yr
- Cass County4/yr
- Hennepin County4/yr
- Anoka County4/yr
- Becker County4/yr
- Stearns County3/yr
How this is counted
A bad air day is a day the county's daily AQI from EPA AirData went above 100, the level where EPA tells children, older adults and people with asthma or heart disease to cut back outdoors. Monitors do not run every day, so yearly counts are scaled to 365 days. This is the record, not today's air: for that, check AirNow. More on the method in how the county numbers are made, on the AQI 100 line in what counts as a bad air day.