Air quality in Póvoa de Varzim

MODELLED — averaged over the 82 one-kilometre cells inside Póvoa de Varzim for 2024, weighted by the 56,449 people who live in them, so a large empty concelho is scored by its town rather than by its moorland. Weighted by land area instead it would be 20/100. An address inside it can still sit well above or below this figure, which is what the address lookup is for.

Modelled annual values, 2024

MODELLED — EEA / ETC-HE 1 km European air quality maps. The first column is the population-weighted mean, what a resident typically breathes. The range shows the cleanest and dirtiest cell anywhere inside the boundary, which is usually the more useful number: it is the spread a buyer is choosing between. Ozone is the 93.2nd percentile of the daily maximum 8-hour mean, not an annual mean.

Fine particles under 2.5 micrometres (PM2.5), modelled, four years

Nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), modelled, four years

MODELLED — the area mean in each year's map. Four years is not a trend. Weather moves these numbers between years by more than most policy does, and the 2021 and 2022 maps were produced with a different input mix from the 2023 and 2024 ones.

What the monitors near Póvoa de Varzim have measured

These are real measurements from the nearest official monitoring stations. A station a few kilometres away can differ a lot from a specific street, especially for nitrogen dioxide, which falls off sharply away from traffic.

Coarse particles under 10 micrometres (PM10)

Not plotted: Meco-Perafita 2026 — the year is not over — 65% of its hours so far, not yet a comparable annual mean; Mindelo-Vila do Conde 2026 — the year is not over — 70% of its hours so far, not yet a comparable annual mean; VNTelha-Maia 2026 — the year is not over — 24% of its hours so far, not yet a comparable annual mean; VNTelha-Maia 2024 — only 75% of the year's hours were valid, under the 75% the EU requires for an annual mean; treated as unknown; VNTelha-Maia 2023 — only 71% of the year's hours were valid, under the 75% the EU requires for an annual mean; treated as unknown; Meco-Perafita 2022 — only 23% of the year's hours were valid, under the 75% the EU requires for an annual mean; treated as unknown; and 12 more.

Nitrogen dioxide (NO₂)

Not plotted: D.Manuel II-Vermoim 2026 — the year is not over — 71% of its hours so far, not yet a comparable annual mean; Mindelo-Vila do Conde 2026 — the year is not over — 72% of its hours so far, not yet a comparable annual mean; VNTelha-Maia 2026 — the year is not over — 72% of its hours so far, not yet a comparable annual mean; VNTelha-Maia 2023 — only 52% of the year's hours were valid, under the 75% the EU requires for an annual mean; treated as unknown; D.Manuel II-Vermoim 2022 — only 72% of the year's hours were valid, under the 75% the EU requires for an annual mean; treated as unknown; Mindelo-Vila do Conde 2022 — only 69% of the year's hours were valid, under the 75% the EU requires for an annual mean; treated as unknown; and 4 more.

Ozone (O₃)

Not plotted: Meco-Perafita 2026 — the year is not over — 64% of its hours so far, not yet a comparable annual mean; Mindelo-Vila do Conde 2026 — the year is not over — 70% of its hours so far, not yet a comparable annual mean; VNTelha-Maia 2026 — the year is not over — 67% of its hours so far, not yet a comparable annual mean; Meco-Perafita 2022 — only 72% of the year's hours were valid, under the 75% the EU requires for an annual mean; treated as unknown; Mindelo-Vila do Conde 2022 — only 74% of the year's hours were valid, under the 75% the EU requires for an annual mean; treated as unknown; Mindelo-Vila do Conde 2021 — only 21% of the year's hours were valid, under the 75% the EU requires for an annual mean; treated as unknown; and 3 more.

This is the annual mean of the hourly ozone measurements. The EU target value of 120 µg/m³ is written against a different statistic — the daily maximum 8-hour mean — so it is not drawn here. Ozone behaves unlike the others: it is destroyed by fresh traffic exhaust, so a busy street often reads lower than the countryside around it.

The stations these come from

A traffic station sits beside a busy road and reads the worst case; a background station reads what the area as a whole breathes; an industrial one sits near a plant. Which kind you are looking at matters more than the distance.

MEASURED — hourly observations reported by Portugal to the European Environment Agency, aggregated here into annual means. A year is charted only if at least 75% of its hours are valid, the threshold the EU sets for an annual mean, and only if the value is physically plausible; anything excluded is listed under its chart with the reason rather than dropped. Station names and locations come from APA's QualAr register; station type and setting from the EEA's station metadata. Verified data through 2025; the most recent year is provisional and not yet verified.

How it changes through the year

PM2.5 peaks in January at 11.8 µg/m³ and bottoms out in August at 4.2, a factor of 2.8. PM10 peaks in February at 27.4 µg/m³ and bottoms out in September at 19.6, a factor of 1.4. NO₂ peaks in December at 20.3 µg/m³ and bottoms out in June at 9.5, a factor of 2.1. O₃ peaks in April at 64.9 µg/m³ and bottoms out in October at 39.3, a factor of 1.7.

MEASURED — Sobreiras-Lordelo do Ouro (background, 31 km away), each calendar month averaged over 2022 onwards, µg/m³. A month is used only if at least 400 of its hours are valid.

Particles run highest in the cold months, when domestic wood burning coincides with still air that does not disperse it. An annual mean hides that entirely. Ozone runs highest in summer, because sunlight is what makes it. It is also the one pollutant a busy street has less of than the countryside around it, since fresh traffic exhaust destroys it.

What is near this address

Traffic

• We could not find a motorway, trunk road or primary road near enough to measure.

Distance measured from this location to the nearest road tagged as a motorway, trunk or primary road in OpenStreetMap. © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL. Nitrogen dioxide from traffic falls off within a few hundred metres of a busy road.

Industry within 10 km

• No facility within 10 km reports a release of the pollutants that affect local air. That register only covers large installations above a European reporting threshold, so smaller local sources — a quarry, a bakery, a fleet depot, domestic wood burning — will not appear at all.

REPORTED BY THE OPERATOR — European Industrial Emissions Portal (European Environment Agency), reporting year 2024, air releases in tonnes per year as the operator declared them. Ranked by the total of the pollutants that affect local air; carbon dioxide is deliberately excluded because it is a climate pollutant and would otherwise dominate the ranking. A facility being listed is not a statement that it affects this address.

Known projects nearby

This is a hand-curated list with sources, not a forecast and not a model. We have not estimated how much any of these would change the air. The list is small and certainly incomplete: it holds 15 entries for the whole country. Anything genuinely local — a quarry, a new estate road, a planning application — will not be here, and a buyer should still ask the council.

Nothing on our list is within 15 km of here. That means nothing we have written down, not that nothing is planned — see the caution below.

Freguesias in Póvoa de Varzim

Freguesia pages exist for the Lisbon and Porto metropolitan areas only. Boundaries from CAOP 2024.1 (DGT), which splits several of the 2013 unions of freguesias — so these counts differ from older lists.

Nearby councils in Área Metropolitana do Porto

MODELLED — same 1 km maps, same year, area means.

Sources and what they cannot tell you

• Measured history — European Environment Agency Air Quality Download Service: 19,038,066 validated hourly observations from Portugal's 71 stations, 2013–2026. Station names from APA QualAr. A station is not your street. Nitrogen dioxide in particular varies by hundreds of per cent over a few hundred metres.
• Modelled values at the address — the EEA / ETC-HE 1 km European air quality maps, 2024 and the three years before it. A 1 km cell is an average over a square kilometre. It cannot see one side of a street being busier than the other, and it will understate a very local source and overstate a very local clean spot.
• Industry — European Industrial Emissions Portal, reporting year 2024, as declared by operators. Only installations above the European reporting thresholds appear. Emissions reported are annual totals: they say nothing about when, or which way the wind was blowing.
• Roads — OpenStreetMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). Distance to a road class, not to traffic. A quiet primary road and a jammed one look identical here.
• Boundaries — CAOP (Carta Administrativa Oficial de Portugal, DGT), all 308 concelhos and the freguesias of the Lisbon and Porto metropolitan areas.
• Known projects — curated by hand, each with a citation. Not a forecast. Incomplete by construction.
• Address lookup — OpenStreetMap Nominatim. A geocoder returns the coordinate it thinks you meant. Check the place name we echo back before trusting the figures.
• Not used — CAMS reanalysis, which would give hourly modelled history, needs a Copernicus Atmosphere Data Store key that this build does not have. Madeira and the Azores fall outside the 1 km European map domain, so those 30 municipalities have measured station data but no modelled values and no rating.

Data built 2026-09-21. airhome is free and has no commercial relationship with anyone selling property.