Wed. Mar 28, 2007
Atlanta Is The Pollen Nation
It sounds almost like a romantic list of favorite trees; pine, oak, sweetgum, sycamore and birch. But it’s not romantic. In Atlanta, it’s what’s up your nose:
“We have never seen such high pollen counts so early in the year,” said Dr. Stanley Fineman, an allergist at the Atlanta Asthma and Allergy Clinic. Fineman said his office has been packed with patients seeking relief. “It is serious business, and it is causing a lot of symptoms.”
Monday’s pollen count was the highest in March since the allergy clinic began recording such data in 1995, with 5,499 pollen particles in a cubic meter of air. Tuesday’s was 5,208. A high pollen count is 61-120 particles per cubic meter.
One of the driest Marches in Atlanta history and record-high temperatures resulted in the nearly perfect non-storm that is clogging Atlanta air with pollen, said National Weather Service meteorologist Patricia Atwell.
Laura Mendelson never had allergy problems till she moved to Atlanta a year and a half ago from San Francisco. Now she’s suffering with itchy eyes and fatigue.
AJC: Dry skies, moist eyes: Pollen packs a record punch
I’ve lived in Atlanta for 20 years. I’ve never had any allergy problems before. Yet for the past two days, I’ve had a cough, a sore throat, and a runny nose. And my skin is taking on this greenish tint. Just like every other surface in sight. For example, the hood of my formerly black truck:
So if you tune in to watch the NCAA Final Four this weekend on TV, and your TV picture seems to have a greenish tint, do not adjust your set. The Final Four is coming to you live from Pollen Nation.
Update on Thursday’s pollen count: “The count of 5,937 particles of pollen per cubic meter of air is surpassed only by the 6,013 measure recorded April 12, 1999, according to the Atlanta Allergy & Asthma Clinic. Atlanta’s pollen levels normally peak around the second week of April.”
Published 11:23AM, Wed, Mar 28 2007
Category: Atlanta
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Peanut Gallery
You bought a black automobile in Atlanta, GA?!
Well, there’s your problem right there. Black from July to February, Yellowish-green for the rest of the year.
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And Josh, . . . umm . . . maybe the male plants . . . umm . . . but if they had more female plants . . . umm . . .darn, too many gags, too little bandwidth!
Sir Fleshy, you should remember well that car color has no real impact against such an onslaught … unless you bought a pollen green car.
My neighbor’s car is silver. Well, the sides are. The roof, hood, and trunk are a very saturated pollen green, just in a lighter rendering than my truck.
Josh, I’m not going to get into the male-female plant debate, other than to note the old growth forest next to my parking lot was planted by Mother Nature. I’m going to trust her ratio, rather than any human-engineered one, even if it makes me hack and sneeze.
Gold (my friends in Marysville, Ohio call it “desert mist”) hides pollen quite nicely.
I can’t take credit for foresight, though. I bought the car during a particularly pollen-ey April (‘04). Asked to see the black one at the dealership, they took me to a yellow car and swore it was usually black.
Drove to Tulsa (from St. Louis) the week after St. Patrick’s Day, noting the increase in masses of blooming trees as we moved south. Imagine our surprise when we returned 4 days later to discover that St. Louis had caught up – and then some.
So now we are coughing and hacking our way into summer, while dodging tornadoes and other hazards of a Midwest spring. Joy…
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Interesting interview
All Things Considered, April 27, 2006 · The pollen count can be lowered if people plant more female plants and fewer male plants, says horticulturist Tom Ogren. He says male plants have been popular because they don’t produce messy fruit or seed pods — but they are responsible for most of the pollen in the air. It’s better to plant females or plants with both male and female parts, Ogren says, since the pollen doesn’t spread as much.
Robert Siegel talks with Tom Ogren, author of Safe Sex in the Garden and Allergy-Free Gardening. Ogren developed the OPALS (Ogren Plants Allergy Scale) measure from his research with the USDA.