Today's air over Heidelberg — and, in grass and birch season, the pollen — in plain words, updated through the day.
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A plain-language check on the air over Heidelberg — and, in season, the grass and birch pollen. Updated through the day.
Fair Fine for being outside, including exercise, for almost everyone.
Peak modelled counts for today. Hay fever symptoms typically start when counts pass about 50 grains/m³ — grass is the one that affects most people in the UK (May–July); birch is a spring tree pollen (March–May).
| Pollen | Level | Peak today |
|---|---|---|
| Grass | Low | 17 grains/m³ |
| Birch | Low | 0 grains/m³ |
| Day | Air quality | Grass pollen |
|---|---|---|
| Wed 15 Jul | Moderate | Low |
| Thu 16 Jul | Moderate | Low |
| Fri 17 Jul | Poor | Low |
| Sat 18 Jul | Poor | — |
Heidelberg sits in a sheltered pocket of the Neckar valley and is one of Germany's warmest, sunniest cities. On hot, still, sunny days that same weather cooks ground-level ozone, which usually peaks in the afternoon and early evening — so ozone, not traffic soot, is the pollutant most likely to push a summer reading up here. If you're sensitive, the cooler morning is the better time for a hard run or long ride.
In calm, cold winter spells the valley can trap air under a temperature inversion, holding nitrogen dioxide and fine particles from traffic and wood-burning close to the ground until wind or rain clears them. The LUBW has measured NO, NO₂, particulates and ozone at its Neuenheim station on the Berliner Straße since 1986; most days across the year the air here reads good or fair, and this page is for spotting the exceptions.
Grass pollen is the summer story, peaking across June and July, while birch drives the spring peak around April. On high days the count is usually worst in the early morning and again in the early evening, when pollen lifts and then settles. This reading is a regional model, not a Heidelberg-specific trap — treat it as the day's tendency.
Updated . These are modelled estimates for the area around central Heidelberg, not readings from a street monitor — air right beside a busy road can be worse than the area-wide picture. Official forecast: heidelberg.de. Air quality data by Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0), based on Copernicus CAMS.