🇱🇻 Riga Climate Health Index
Friday, 7 August 2026 · updated 10:33 UTC · refreshes live through the day · LIVE
Modelled estimates · Medically reviewed guidance · Not an official warning service
est. = index derived by Mobi Doctor's model from the weather inputs. All values are modelled estimates from European weather and atmospheric forecast systems (Open-Meteo · CAMS/Copernicus) — not direct readings from a monitoring station in this city, and not official public-health warnings.
Cancer Immunology Researcher
The Climate Health Score for Riga today is 6.3/10 — high exposure on a 0–10 scale where 10 is extreme. It reflects the worst of ten live hazard readings for Riga — heat, UV, air quality, pollen, hydration demand, allergy, mosquito activity, fire weather, flu season and cold — and is recalculated through the day by Mobi Doctor's European Climate Health Index.
How heat behaves in Riga
Riga runs slightly more continental than Tallinn: its warm spells reach a little higher and last a little longer, on the same low baseline of acclimatisation and cooling. The gulf tempers the coast; inland neighbourhoods heat harder.
Riga runs slightly more continental than its Baltic neighbours: set back up the Daugava from the gulf, its summers reach a little higher and its warm spells last a little longer, landing on the same defenceless stock — Art Nouveau blocks, wooden districts, panel estates — that the region's cold-first building culture produced. The wooden housing of Āgenskalns and Grīziņkalns heats fastest; the gulf coast at Jūrmala is the city's traditional escape valve.
Heat and your health in Riga today
Feels-like maximum 22°C (air temperature 23°C) · tonight's minimum 17°C · humidity 53% · heat pillar score 0.0/10
Where today sits in Riga's year: the heat season here typically runs late June to mid-August — the Baltics' warmest capital spells, peaking mid-July, runs near or past 30°C most years. Tropical nights in Riga: effectively absent.
Heat stresses the body long before heatstroke. As the air temperature and humidity climb, your heart works harder to push blood to the skin for cooling, you lose fluid and electrolytes through sweat, and blood pressure can dip when you stand. That is why hot days bring more dizziness, fainting, migraines, kidney strain and falls — and studies of heatwave hospital admissions also report more urinary tract infections, thought to be linked to dehydration — not just classic heat exhaustion.
Night temperature matters as much as the daytime peak. When a night stays above 20°C — a tropical night — the cardiovascular system gets far less of its overnight recovery window — one reason heatwave mortality tracks hot nights more closely than hot afternoons. Tonight in Riga drops to around 17°C, which gives the body a proper recovery window.
Pollen count in Riga today
Leading species: Mugwort at ~36 grains/m³ · pollen score 6.3/10
Riga's pollen calendar: Alder April · birch May, heavy · grass June–July · mugwort traces August. The live counts above show where today falls in that cycle.
Pollen allergy (hay fever) is triggered by different plants through the year: trees like birch and alder in spring, grasses in early summer, and weeds such as mugwort and ragweed from late July into autumn. Symptoms — sneezing, itchy eyes, a blocked nose, worsened asthma — flare when daily counts cross species-specific thresholds, and air pollution makes the same pollen load feel worse by priming the airways.
On high-count days: keep windows closed in the early morning and evening, shower and change after time outdoors, and start antihistamines before symptoms peak rather than after. If you use an asthma inhaler, keep it with you on high pollen days.
Allergy load in Riga today: pollen × air quality
Combined pollen-and-air allergy load 5.6/10 — pollen 6.3 amplified by air quality (EAQI 29) · estimated from live data
Riga's birch May is heavy — Latvian birch country surrounds the city — on air that is mostly clean, with the port and traffic adding a modest multiplier. Grass carries June into July.
Allergy risk is more than the pollen count. Exhaust particles damage the airway lining and prime the immune response, so the same grains provoke stronger symptoms on polluted days — and pollutant-stressed plants release more allergenic protein per grain. This combined score therefore reads pollen and air quality together: identical counts can feel very different on clean and dirty days, which is why it is tracked as its own pillar rather than folded into either input.
Today the combination is elevated: plan outdoor time for the cleaner, cooler hours, keep windows closed through the morning pollen release, and take antihistamines before symptoms build rather than after. Anyone with allergic asthma should keep their reliever inhaler within reach.
UV index in Riga today
Maximum UV index 4.8 · moderate on the WHO scale
Riga's strong-UV season: May to July — midday index 5–6.
UV radiation peaks between late morning and mid-afternoon and is invisible — it burns on cool, cloudy days too. At UV 8 and above, unprotected fair skin can burn in under 30 minutes. Repeated burns drive most skin-cancer risk, and some common medicines (certain antibiotics, diuretics, acne treatments) make skin dramatically more sun-sensitive.
Sun protection is low-priority today, but sunscreen remains sensible for extended time outdoors.
Air quality in Riga today
European AQI 29 · fair (EAQI scale: 0 good → 100+ worst) · PM2.5 3.4 µg/m³ · ozone 72 µg/m³ · score 2.4/10
Riga's air runs clean in summer and heavier in winter, when wood heating across the low wooden districts lifts particle counts; the readings above in the warm season are usually traffic-baseline only.
Fine particles (PM2.5) reach deep into the lungs and bloodstream; ozone forms in sunny, hot weather and irritates the airways — which is why heatwaves and smog often arrive together. People with asthma, COPD, heart disease, pregnant women and children feel the effects first: more wheeze, more inhaler use, more chest tightness.
Levels are acceptable for outdoor activity today for most people, including sensitive groups.
Fire weather around Riga today
Fire-weather score 1.4/10 — 23°C, 53% humidity, wind to 20 km/h · estimated (weather conduciveness, not active fires)
Latvia's dry-summer fire form is the bog and forest smoulder — the 2018 burns hazed the region — and the pine belts along the gulf cure in drought. The score stays low most years, rising with regional drought.
This pillar scores how conducive the weather is to wildfire — heat, dry air and wind, the published Angström approach — not actual fires. Its health meaning is smoke: wildfire smoke is concentrated fine particulate that can travel hundreds of kilometres, and a smoke episode hits the same people hardest as any pollution spike — asthma, COPD, heart disease, pregnancy, young children and older adults.
Conditions are not notably fire-conducive today. If you see or smell smoke regardless, treat it like a pollution episode: head indoors, close the windows, and postpone outdoor exertion.
Hydration in Riga today
Hydration demand score 0.0/10 · estimated from live weather
Riga's warm spells run drier than the coast's feel suggests, and the Jūrmala beach day adds wind-dried sun hours: the Baltic pattern is under-drinking on days that never feel hot enough to matter — until the evening headache files the report.
Fluid needs are not fixed — they scale with heat, humidity, dry air, UV and activity. Thirst lags behind need, especially in older adults, whose thirst signal weakens with age. Dark urine, headache, and light-headedness on standing are earlier and more reliable signals.
Today's guidance: Normal — drink to thirst; keep water with you on long outings.
Mosquito activity in Riga tonight
Mosquito activity score 2.9/10 — tonight around 17°C at 53% humidity · estimated from live weather (activity, not disease risk)
Mosquito season in Riga: June to August, lively near the river and coastal pines. The score above places tonight inside that season using live temperature and humidity.
Mosquitoes fly when nights are warm and humid enough — activity climbs steeply once evenings hold above about 15°C and peaks on still, muggy nights. Southern Europe adds the tiger mosquito, a day-biter now established across much of the Mediterranean, whose continued spread north ECDC tracks. In parts of southern and central Europe, late summer also brings limited local transmission of mosquito-borne infections such as West Nile virus — an activity score is not a disease-risk score, but high-activity weeks are when precautions earn their keep.
Practical: use a repellent containing DEET or icaridin at dusk, cover ankles and wrists outdoors in the evening, screen or close windows at night, and empty standing water on balconies weekly. Speak to a doctor about any fever that develops in the week after heavy bite exposure in an affected region.
Flu season in Riga: where today sits
Flu-season level 0.5/10 · seasonal climatology (ECDC winter pattern), not live case counts
Flu in Riga runs December to February, peaking in January through a proper Baltic winter's indoor season. Summer sits at the floor. Autumn vaccination is the standing advice for seniors and chronic patients.
Influenza in Europe is sharply seasonal: transmission runs low through summer, builds from late autumn as life moves indoors and cool, dry air favours the virus, then peaks between December and February in ECDC's surveillance pattern. This pillar follows that climatology — it tells you where the calendar sits, not this week's case counts, and we label it that way rather than dress a seasonal curve up as live surveillance.
What to do with it: the score rising through autumn is the cue that vaccination time has arrived — October to November gives antibodies time to build before the peak, and matters most for over-65s, pregnant women, young children and anyone with heart, lung, kidney or immune conditions. At today's low seasonal level, a summer fever is far more likely to be something other than flu — and worth a doctor's opinion if it lasts.
Cold stress in Riga: the other end of the index
Cold-stress score 0.0/10 — tonight's minimum around 17°C
Riga winter is continental Baltic: freezing from December, -15°C snaps, the Daugava icing over in hard years. The gulf moderates the coast slightly. Housing is winter-built; the pillar registers a real, multi-month cold season.
Across Europe, cold claims more lives each year than heat — mostly quietly, through winter's extra heart attacks, strokes and respiratory infections rather than hypothermia. Cold air raises blood pressure and thickens blood within minutes, narrows airways, and stresses hearts hardest in the first snaps of the season, before bodies and habits adjust. Indoor cold in poorly heated homes does as much damage as the weather outside.
Cold is not a factor today — the score sits low, and this pillar will matter again when the season turns. It stays on the page year-round because an honest index needs both ends of the thermometer.
The Riga climate-health year
The Latvian year runs cold-bright: heavy birch in May, grass June to July, and a summer that cruises the low 20s with more frequent and slightly hotter interruptions than the coast — 30°C spells arrive most years now. The city's rhythm still moves to Jūrmala's beaches on warm weekends as it has for a century. August evenings darken quickly; the long grey season starts by October.
| Season | Typical pattern in Riga |
|---|---|
| Heat season | late June to mid-August — the Baltics' warmest capital spells |
| Peak heat | mid-July, runs near or past 30°C most years |
| Tropical nights | Effectively absent |
| Pollen calendar | Alder April · birch May, heavy · grass June–July · mugwort traces August |
| Mosquito season | June to August, lively near the river and coastal pines |
| Strong-UV months | May to July — midday index 5–6 |
Typical seasonal patterns from established climatology — the live scores above always reflect today's actual conditions.
Visiting Riga? What travellers should know
Riga's Art Nouveau district is best toured in morning light for both photography and temperature — the facades face streets with little shade — and the Central Market's hangars hold cool air the outdoor stalls lose by noon. The old town's lanes shade themselves. On warm days do the Riga thing: the Jūrmala train takes half an hour to a twenty-kilometre beach whose pines shade the dunes, and whose shallow gulf water warms faster than the open Baltic — gentle entry, but real sun exposure on white sand.
If you do get ill away from home, you don't have to navigate a foreign health system for something a consultation can solve: speak to a Mobi Doctor physician online from your hotel or apartment.
Medicines in Riga this week
Temperatures are currently inside normal storage ranges. Standard advice applies: keep medicines below 25°C, out of direct sun, and never in a parked vehicle.
Should I speak to a doctor about heat symptoms?
Heat illness escalates in stages, and the right response depends on which stage you're seeing. Use these three tiers:
ACall 112 now — emergency signs
- Confusion, slurred speech, or disorientation; a seizure; or fainting that doesn't resolve within a minute or two
- Skin that has turned hot and dry after earlier heavy sweating, or a body temperature of 40 °C or more — signs of heatstroke
- Chest pain, severe shortness of breath, or a racing pulse that doesn't settle with rest in the cool
- Heat-exhaustion symptoms — dizziness, headache, nausea, cramps, pale clammy skin — that are no better after 30 minutes of rest, cooling and fluids: this can be heatstroke developing
- A baby, elderly person, or someone with heart disease who becomes limp, unresponsive, or "not themselves" in the heat
While waiting: move them to the coolest place available, remove excess clothing, cool the skin with water and moving air, and do not give fluids to anyone who is drowsy or confused.
BSpeak to a doctor today
- Heat symptoms that improve with cooling but keep returning on hot days, or leave you washed out for more than a day
- Repeated vomiting, or very dark urine / almost no urination through the day
- You take diuretics, blood-pressure, heart, or diabetes medication and feel unwell in the heat — some of these medicines change how your body handles fluid and temperature
- You are pregnant, or you have a heart or kidney condition that feels worse than usual in this weather
CSelf-care and recheck in 30 minutes
- Mild headache, tiredness, or thirst: move somewhere cool, remove unnecessary clothing, drink plenty of water or an isotonic sports drink, and cool the skin — spray or sponge with cool water and fan
- Recheck at 30 minutes. Improving means continue resting out of the heat for the rest of the day. Not improving is an emergency — call 112 (tier A), not a wait-and-see
Local numbers in Latvia: 112 — EU-wide emergencies · 113 — medical emergency · for non-urgent concerns, a Mobi Doctor physician is online in minutes.
General guidance, not a personal assessment — when in doubt, call. In an emergency always call 112.
Sources for the medical guidance
The clinical guidance on this page follows public authority sources:
Medication storage limits follow each product's manufacturer information (SmPC / patient leaflet) — always defer to the leaflet for your specific product, and to your prescriber for personal advice.
Frequently asked questions
Is it safe to exercise outdoors in Riga today?
Yes — heat is not a limiting factor today (heat score 0.0/10). Usual sun protection applies.
Do I need to worry about storing insulin or Ozempic in Riga this week?
Standard rules apply this week: unopened stock in the fridge at 2–8°C, in-use pens below 30°C away from direct sun.
Who is most at risk from today's conditions in Riga?
Today's Climate Health Score is 6.3/10 (High). Elderly: low · Children: low · Outdoor workers: low · Athletes: low. Driven by mugwort pollen running elevated.
Will tonight be a tropical night in Riga?
No — tonight drops to around 17°C, below the 20°C tropical-night threshold, giving the body a proper recovery window.
What pollen is high in Riga right now?
Mugwort is the leading species at roughly 36 grains/m³ (pollen score 6.3/10). If you are sensitised, start antihistamines proactively and keep windows closed in the early morning and evening.
When is the heat season in Riga?
Typically late June to mid-August — the Baltics' warmest capital spells, peaking mid-July, runs near or past 30°C most years. Effectively absent. Today's score at the top of this page reflects live conditions, not the seasonal average.
When is pollen season in Riga?
Alder April · birch May, heavy · grass June–July · mugwort traces August. This page tracks live counts for six species (alder, birch, grass, mugwort, olive and ragweed) and updates them through the day.
When is mosquito season in Riga?
June to August, lively near the river and coastal pines. The live mosquito-activity score on this page places tonight inside that season using temperature and humidity — it measures activity conditions, not disease risk.
Highest-risk cities in Europe today
All cities:
Riga score history — last 30 days
One point per day, refreshed by the daily rebuild. Full archive downloads in the press room.
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