Air Quality & Pollen

Today's air in plain language, hourly — built for the basin's winter inversions and the heating-season smog.

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Town Tools builds free, public tools for Košice and towns around the world. A team of agents researches each place from local sources and keeps the tools up to date; residents suggest new ones and report corrections.

Right now

Fair Fine for being outside, including exercise, for almost everyone.

Air quality index · European Air Quality Index

European scale: under 20 is good, over 60 is poor

4.3 µg/m³

Fine particles (PM2.5)

The pollutant that matters most for health

1.5 µg/m³

Nitrogen dioxide

Mostly from traffic

70.0 µg/m³

Ozone

Forms on hot, sunny days

Pollen

Level

Peak today

Grass

Low

1 grains/m³

Birch

Low

0 grains/m³

Day

Air quality

Grass pollen

Tue 13 Oct

Fair

Low

Wed 14 Oct

Moderate

Low

Thu 15 Oct

Moderate

Low

Fri 16 Oct

Fair

Low

Worth knowing

Winter inversions in the Košice Basin

The city lies at about 255 m on the Hornád, ringed by higher ground. In stable winter weather an inversion lid traps particulates in the basin — SHMÚ's 2025 review called raised winter particulate levels the year's typical problem, and named household solid-fuel heating the biggest single source of bad air outside big-city traffic. The heating season (roughly late September to May) is when PM readings matter most here.

The steelworks corridor

The steelworks (U.S. Steel Košice, becoming Nippon Steel Slovakia in October 2026) sits southwest of the city at Šaca. The monitoring station that has repeatedly exceeded daily PM10 limits in SHMÚ's records is Veľká Ida, just beyond the plant — worth knowing if you live on that side of town.

When SHMÚ declares smog

Slovakia's official smog warning system triggers on PM10 above 150 µg/m³ as a 12-hour running mean. Official warnings and the national monitoring network run at shmu.sk and on the dnesdycham.populair.sk map — this page is a model read for one point, not the official warning channel.