Daily pollen alerts
One notification at 8am with Atlanta's pollen level. No email, no account — we store only an anonymous push token issued by your browser. Remove anytime by tapping the bell.
Sniffing the air…
— · Google Pollen Index
·Threat Assessment
Universal Pollen Index (UPI) · via Google Maps Platform
Possibly the only honest terms you've ever read
We don't steal your data. This is a joke website about sneezing in Atlanta. There is no database, no user accounts, and no team. There is a lightweight server-side proxy (a Cloudflare Worker) that fetches pollen data on your behalf so the API key never touches your browser. The Worker stores the most recent pollen reading in Cloudflare KV (a key-value cache) so it can serve fresh data without hammering the Google API; it stores the pollen data, not anything about you. It does not log IP addresses, requests, or any identifying information. No venture funding, either. No one here is capable of running an operation sophisticated enough to steal anything from you.
Analytics, such as they are. We use Umami, a self-hosted analytics tool, to count page views and track button clicks. All counts are aggregate: we see totals, not who did what. Umami uses zero tracking cookies, stores zero personal data, and runs on our own server rather than being handed off to a third party. That is the entire surveillance apparatus.
About the numbers. Pollen data comes from the Google Maps Platform Pollen API, fetched server-side so the API key never reaches your browser. Google provides a Universal Pollen Index (UPI) on a scale of 0–5 for tree, grass, and weed pollen: 0 is None, 1 is Very Low, 2 is Low, 3 is Moderate, 4 is High, and 5 is Very High. Unlike raw grain counts (which measure actual particles per cubic meter), the UPI is a composite index derived from atmospheric modeling and satellite data, weighted to reflect allergy impact rather than just particle volume, so a 4 on the UPI is meaningful regardless of what the raw count happens to be that day. The category shown on screen is Google's classification. We just made it bigger and more alarming. When the header says ESTIMATED instead of LIVE, the API was unreachable and the severity is a seasonally-calibrated guess. Data is refreshed at most once every 6 hours, and only when someone actually visits the page. Between visits, nothing is fetched. When you load the page, you're always seeing the most recent cached reading — which may be up to 6 hours old.
"Am I Dying?" Disclosure. Clicking that button does not consult WebMD, a physician, an allergist, or any diagnostic resource of any kind. It consults a list of jokes. Do not make medical decisions based on a button on a website about pollen vibes. If your throat is closing, please put this down and call 911.
Cookies & Local Storage.
Zero tracking cookies. The creator would rather eat them than store them. We do use your browser's localStorage to cache the most recent pollen reading for up to 6 hours, purely so the page loads instantly on revisit without making a network request. The cached data is the pollen index itself (numbers and categories). It contains nothing about you, and it is stored only on your own device. If you have enabled notifications, your browser also stores its own push subscription state locally; this is managed entirely by the browser, not by us.
Daily Notifications (optional).
If you tap the 🔔 bell and allow notifications, here is exactly what happens and what we store.
What gets stored on our server: one push subscription object, issued by your browser. It contains an endpoint URL (an opaque, random-looking string assigned by your browser vendor) and two cryptographic keys used to authenticate the wake signal. It does not contain your name, email address, IP address, location, or any information that identifies you as a person. It is tied to a specific browser on a specific device — nothing more.
How the notification is delivered: once a day at 8am, our server sends an empty HTTP request to your subscription endpoint. No notification text, no personal data — just a cryptographically signed wake signal. That signal travels through your browser vendor's push infrastructure: Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging for Chrome and Edge, Mozilla's autopush service for Firefox, Apple's Push Notification Service for Safari and iOS. Each of these vendors has its own privacy policy governing that transit. We have no insight into whether the delivery succeeded.
How the notification content is assembled: when the wake signal arrives, the service worker (a small background script already on your device from visiting this site) makes a fresh request to our pollen API, reads the current severity, picks the appropriate copy, and calls showNotification() locally. The notification text is never sent from our server; it is built on your device, from data your device fetches. We never know what it said.
How to stop: tap the 🔔 bell at any time. This immediately sends a deletion request to our server and unsubscribes your browser. You can also revoke permission in your browser's notification settings — the token will be automatically removed from our server the next morning when delivery fails. No email required to subscribe, no account to delete.
What it costs: nothing. We use the Web Push Protocol (RFC 8030) and VAPID (RFC 8292), open standards built into every modern browser. No third-party push service, no monthly fee, no SDK. The entire feature runs on infrastructure we already pay nothing for.
Car Wash Disclaimer. The Pollening is not responsible for any vehicle that was washed in good faith and subsequently destroyed by nature. You were warned. It said so right on the screen.
About the accuracy. The pollen levels shown here are derived from the Google Maps Platform Pollen API, which uses satellite and atmospheric modeling. They are not certified NAB readings. For official, NAB-certified Atlanta pollen data, visit Atlanta Allergy & Asthma. We are a joke website. They are the real ones.
Terms of Service: Do not use this app for actual medical advice. If you are using this website to decide whether to take Benadryl, please also consult a doctor, a pharmacist, or literally anyone with a medical license. We are a website. We have no license. We have a pollen index.
Contact Form. The "Send Feedback" form is handled by Web3Forms, a simple form relay service. Anything you submit is forwarded to us via their servers. Their privacy policy applies to anything you send.
© The Pollening · Made in Atlanta · Inspired by suffering · Peer-reviewed by no one · Last updated 2026
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