Introducing Huafen: a pollen intelligence platform for China

Why Huafen?

Hundreds of millions of people in China live with allergic rhinitis, and for a large share of them the trigger is seasonal — the classic hay fever driven by airborne pollen from mugwort, ragweed, birch and other allergenic plants in spring and autumn.

Yet when they want to check "how high is the pollen count today?" before stepping out, reliable answers are scarce: official monitoring covers only a handful of cities, many sites substitute vague air-quality numbers, and most simply have no data at all. Huafen exists to fix that — making pollen concentration as easy to check as the weather.

Where does the data come from?

Huafen's core principle is no data, no verdict. Every source is labeled openly on the page:

1. China Weather Network — 53-hospital pollen monitoring network (weatherdt) — real hospital-level daily releases covering major Chinese cities; the primary source for city pages.
2. Inner Mongolia CDC (nmgcdc) — official pollen bulletins for 12 leagues/cities, including 7-day history backfill.
3. Open-Meteo / CAMS pollen model — modelled pollen for Europe and other regions.
4. 7Timer (GFS numerical forecast) + Open-Meteo — unified weather (temperature, humidity, wind, precipitation, cloud cover) plus a rolling 7-day daily forecast.
5. Seasonal climate estimation — for areas with no real data at all, a coarse seasonal baseline derived from flowering calendars — always flagged "estimated", never passed off as measured.

What is the Huafen PRI?

The big number on every city page is the Huafen PRI (Pollen Risk Index, 0–100). It is not a raw concentration — it fuses two signals:

• Dominant pollen concentration: how much of the leading allergenic species is in the air;
• Weather dispersion conditions: wind, humidity and rainfall — the drier and windier it is, the further pollen travels and the higher the index.

The index maps to four bands — Low (1–20) / Moderate (21–40) / High (41–70) / Very High (71–100) — each with tailored outdoor advice.

Honesty: missing data ≠ low risk

Many platforms render "no data" as "low risk" or even zero — a dangerous misrepresentation. Huafen is strict about this:

• Cities without source coverage show no data, never join rankings, and are never counted as low-risk;
• Estimated values always carry an "estimated" badge plus provenance (e.g. "seasonal estimate" or "estimated from a nearby city");
• Every reading shows its source, update time and confidence.

What can you do here?

• City pages — big PRI number, live weather, species-level pollen breakdown, health advice, 7-day weather forecast, pollen calendar and national ranking context.
• National pollen map — all city points at a glance; risk colors only where real data exists.
• National risk rankings — worst/cleanest TOP lists with day-over-day trends.
• Pollen calendar — a continuous strip of the past 7 measured days and the next 7 forecast days.
• Air quality — China AQI alongside pollen, because the two often matter together for sensitive people.
• Plant encyclopedia — science notes and flowering seasons for mugwort, ragweed, grasses and more.
• County pages — estimated from the parent city where no independent monitoring exists, always clearly marked.

Advice for allergy sufferers

1. Check the index before you go out — avoid early mornings and windy days when risk is high.
2. Read it together with the weather — dry and breezy days spread pollen; rain settles it, but a windy day after rain can stir it back up.
3. Plan with the forecasts — use the 7-day pollen and weather outlook to schedule trips and medication.
4. Always follow your doctor — the pollen index is an environmental reference, not medical advice.

Huafen's data grows and calibrates with every sync. Our goal is simple: one page you open every day, and read pollen like you read the weather.