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Pollen Counts High This Spring Allergy Season

Posted at 2:31 PM, Apr 10, 2019
and last updated 2019-04-10 17:40:43-04

(LEX 18)– Pollen counts are high, so if you suffer from allergies, you’ve probably been having a rough time lately.

“It just seems like, in the last couple of weeks, everything has just popped! And so there’s all of this pollen, a large concentration is being put into the air leading to problems for so many allergy sufferers,” said LEX 18 Meteorologists Jill Szwed. “We actually are enjoying a Spring this year in the Bluegrass. Typically, we go right from winter into 80-degree heat, meanwhile, we’ve seen a couple of nice days for almost a week now temperatures are in the 60s and 70s, which is what we like to see in the spring–that nice smooth transition, not a quick jump from one extreme to the next.”

Despite the smooth transition, pollen counts are high!

Szwed said that some weather patterns play a role.

“The warmth is helping to generate more pollen and the wind is then blowing it around so the concentration is higher,” he said.

Many are dubbing this Spring one of the worst allergy seasons, but Jill said that is hard to classify.

“It does seem on the surface with these longer growing seasons, a quicker rise in temperature, over the early months into the year, that, of course, then plants are going to be living longer so to speak. And so they’re going to be releasing pollen for a longer period of time. Maybe leading to higher concentrations so that could be leading to a worse allergy season,” she said.

There’s no doubt the allergy season is alive in the Bluegrass thanks to blooming trees, but it doesn’t end there, grass and weed season is next.