Tree pollen hits an ‘extreme’ level as the season starts in the Philly region

If you’re wondering why you feel as if you have poison ivy of the eyes and are running out of tissues, be advised that the trees evidently have decided to skip spring training and jump right into the heart of pollen season.

With a robust showing by the cedars, the daily pollen concentrations Tuesday reached their highest levels in at least three years, according to data analyzed by Donald Dvorin, an allergist in Mount Laurel who is the region’s National Allergy Bureau counter.

“This is extreme,” he said. In all likelihood, the burst is related to the ultra-mild, snowless winter, he said.

His counts backed off to “moderate” Wednesday, although the Asthma Center in Center City, about 15 miles from Mount Laurel, reported “high” levels in the morning.

“You can look at the trees, you can see the buds have opened,” said Dvorin, who has been analyzing pollen for more than 30 years, using a rooftop trap and examining the captives under a microscope lens.

» READ MORE: That was one warm winter

Could this be a sign of what’s to come? Various research points to longer pollen seasons in a world that is becoming warmer and moister and with carbon dioxide levels increasing, but forecasting the severity of a given season would be “almost impossible,” said Dvorin.

Pollen exhibits some of the elusive behavior of the atmosphere that is responsible for its development and flight.

Humans have been inhaling pollen, the reproductive gametes of trees and grasses, ever since they had noses. Caesar Augustus was known to suffer seasonal allergies. (This would predate the textus; that’s Latin for tissue.)

But researchers say the incidence of seasonal rhinitis — “hay fever,” an all-time misnomer — spiked dramatically from 1870 until 1950 and continues to increase.

» READ MORE: Measuring pollen is labor-intensive

Pollen wasn’t even identified as a tormentor until the late 19th century, a discovery credited to the British physician Charles H. Blackley.

He wrote that he had suffered seasonal symptoms for 20 years and was frustrated by the “scanty literature” on the subject. Then one day he happened to be traveling on a road when a passing carriage kicked up dust in his face, setting off a sneezing fit.

The following day he returned to the same area, stirred up the dust, had another sneezing attack. This time he collected the dust and examined it under a microscope to discover the presence of pollen grains.

Blackley went on to inhale pollen deliberately and rub it in his eyes and developed what is now a widely popular skin test for susceptibility.

He also noted how peculiar it was that people who lived on farms didn’t suffer the same symptoms, and modern researchers believe he was on to something.

One possible explanation for the increase in allergy incidence could be the “hygiene hypothesis,” a term that appeared in 1989 in a short paper by a British epidemiologist. He speculated that people who live in rural areas and interact with nature might have better-developed immune systems and thus be less prone to allergic reactions, the body’s way of fighting what it perceives as an invader.

Pollution might make pollen more dangerous by breaking down cell walls and allowing it to invade respiratory systems more deeply, according to other research.

And along with increases related to climate change, pollen may be getting a bump in urban areas as cities add trees and grasses to tame summer heating.

» READ MORE: Some research shows potentially dramatic pollen spikes

What is certain is that the number of sufferers has been growing. Estimates vary, but in 2021, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America reported that more than 80 million people in the United States suffered from hay fever symptoms.

They do appear to be suffering longer: The seasons are expanding, said Estelle Levitin, an aerobiologist and professor emeritus at Tulsa University.

Getting a handle on intensity is more problematic, she said. The amount of pollen in the air at any given time is going to be about flight conditions, and that’s the province of the chaotic atmosphere. Pollen grains fly freely when it’s warm, dry, and breezy. That was the case Tuesday, when the humidity was in the desertlike teens.

Rain, the allergy sufferers’ best friend, grounds them.

Levitin and Dvorin have observed that one wild card is the fact that for mysterious reasons, the “effort” that trees devote to reproduction varies substantially from year to year. In short, sometimes trees just aren’t in the mood.

One long-standing impediment to research has been the sparseness of real-time data, said Dvorin and other pollen experts. As of 2021, the National Allergy Board network had only about 90 certified counters across the country.

In the United States, commercial services post computer-generated forecasts, but they remain a work in progress. On Tuesday, both pollen.com and AccuWeather.com called for “moderate” tree-pollen levels, from Honey Brook, Chester County, to Chatsworth, in the heart of the cedar-intensive Pine Barrens.

While not predictive, the daily counts are valuable in tracking tendencies during the tree season, which can last into early May when it overlaps with the grass season, which continues into June. After a break, the ragweeds start emitting pollen in August.

Center City’s Asthma Center, which uses an automated system, posts counts between 6 and 7 a.m. Dvorin issues his counts, a 24-hour sample of what has landed in his Mount Laurel trap, on afternoons Tuesday through Friday.

Outside of Mount Laurel, the nearest certified counting station outside the region would be Springfield, N.J., near Newark. South and west of Philly, stations are more than 100 miles away.

Pollen.com and other online forecasts are of some value in that they show days in which the weather and the state of the season would favor high or low counts. However, keep in mind that a brief shower, or wind shift, or the caprice of the trees on a given day or hour can change everything.