A blanket of pollen has descended on the Triangle over the past 2 weeks — coating everything it’s touched in yellow powder + leaving us sneezing.
If you’ve started to notice that each year’s pollen amount seems to be getting worse than what you remember as a kid, you’re not crazy.
According to a study done this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA , climate change is making pollen seasons longer and heavier. Pollen seasons are now 10 days longer than they were in 1990, and trees are producing 21% more pollen.
However, the good news is that according to Zaynab Nasif , a spokeswoman for the NC Dept of Environmental Quality, the highest pollen counts are usually recorded between the last week of March and the second week of April — aka the air should be clearing up soon.
In the meantime, watch out for pollen counts being the highest between 5 a.m.–10 a.m. and peaking around mid-day, as Dr. Saira Sheikh of the UNC Division of Rheumatology, Allergy & Immunology told the News & Observer .
Check out this Twitter account
+ this website
for daily pollen updates. Click here
for a list of NC curated pollen tips.