WASHINGTON — It may be time to start taking your allergy medications as experts say pollen counts are unusually high for this time of year.
Due to high tree pollen counts recorded in the DMV, residents may be experiencing their spring allergy symptoms early this year. Specifically, cider, cyprus, and juniper trees are the main culprits.
WUSA9 Meteorologist Kaitlyn McGrath spoke with plant biologist Lewis Ziska to explain the phenomenon further. Ziska is an associate professor from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.
He said, "As the climate changes, winters are actually warming, much faster than summers. And as a result of that, we see evidence, not only here in the Washington area, but elsewhere around the world that pollen is starting to show up during times it normally doesn't show up. Instead of April, sometimes March, and in this case February."
Currently, the pollen count for grass and weeds is still low.
"Typically an average oak tree can produce tens of thousands of pollen particles in a given day," said Ziska. "The numbers that I've seen are more in the hundreds. But when you compare them to what we normally see, which is close to 0, it's still significant."
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