Does it Really Matter When I Go Outside?

Planning your day around pollen levels may feel a bit cumbersome. But it’s important to know that the amount and type of pollen in the air can vary from hour to hour and from day to day.

October 4, 2025 Pollen Sense View production source

Does it Really Matter When I Go Outside?

It’s All About Timing

Children playing dodgeball indoors instead of going outside during high pollen.

Planning your day around pollen levels may feel a bit cumbersome. But it’s important to know that the amount and type of pollen in the air can vary from hour to hour and from day to day. An hour outside in “very high” pollen conditions can be equivalent to 10 hours of exposure in “moderate” conditions. So, yes, it does matter when you go out. If you can figure out what you’re allergic to and when that pollen count is high, you can stay inside during those hours and avoid triggering your hay fever.

Since Pollen Sense is the only app that reports hourly data from real sensors, you can only get that information here.

Pollen Counts

On most days, pollen counts rise during the morning, peaking around the middle of the day and then gradually falling during the afternoon and evening. Usually, you’ll find the lowest pollen counts early in the morning or late in the afternoon or early evening.

However, this is NOT always the case and the pollen count can vary based on a multitude of factors. Sometimes the highest pollen levels are in the late afternoon or even 10 pm at night.

On some days, the pollen count will remain extremely high for the entire 24 hour period, so it may be best to stay inside all day on that particular day. Further, things like the weather and other environmental factors can drastically affect the amount of pollen in the air. For example, a windy day can stir up pollen and keep it high, while rain can temporarily wash all of the pollen out of the air.

How Can I Know When To Go Out?

The best way to figure out what you’re allergic to and when you should avoid going out is by checking the Pollen Sense app and logging your symptoms in the Coach. We’ll let you know which types of allergens are in the air and what the pollen count is for each one. The Coach will help you track how you felt and what the levels of the different pollen types were so you can identify what allergens cause you the most suffering. Use the Pollen Wise app to plan your day to avoid allergens and unnecessary suffering.

Chart showing how pollen exposure changes by time of day.

Timing your activities to avoid high pollen exposures can improve how you feel.

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A clearer, more helpful Pollen Wise home screen

We’ve been spending a lot of time reviewing feedback, reading survey responses, and looking closely at how people are using Pollen Wise. One common thread amongst the feedback and survey responses stuck out: people want the app to feel easier to understand at a glance, and more helpful in answering the question, “What should I care about right now?” That thinking shaped this latest update. This is a major refresh to the Pollen Wise home screen, and while we know there is still more to improve, this update is an important step. We’re continuing to build, refine, and learn, and your feedback is a big part of what helps us decide where to go next.

Incoming: Branches, Revisions, and Layers

Update: The data cutoff for legacy metrics data was changed from March 11 to March 23, 2026 6PM UTC. Data before that date will continue to be available for the forseeable future, however data after March 23, 2026 6PM UTC will no longer be present either in the legacy portal data viewer or via v1 APIs. Please use the V2 APIs and the Branch/Revision-powered data viewer in the portal for live incoming data

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When we say “AI” at Pollen Sense, most people assume we mean LLMs. We don’t. When people hear that Pollen Sense is building AI data infrastructure, the default assumption is usually large language models, chatbots, text generation, or conversational AI. That’s understandable given the moment we’re in. But it’s not what we mean when we say AI. At Pollen Sense, AI data infrastructure means Physical AI, machine learning systems that directly observe the real world, classify physical signals in real time, and convert them into structured, trustworthy data that other systems can reason on.