Is It True? Philly.com Checks In With Our Experts on The Viral Pollen Cloud

   May 9, 2018

   As published on Philly.com by Anthony Wood

Tree-pollen counts remain “extreme,” according to the Wednesday counts from the Asthma Center in Center City, and that’s not surprising.

After about a 10-day delay to the start of the season due to the chilly April, the trees are making up for lost time, said the center’s Donald J. Dvorin, who is the region’s official counter for the National Allergy Bureau.

And just to add insult to misery, the grasses also are popping, and the counts Wednesday were in the “moderate” range.

Thousands of allergy sufferers would have no reason to question to the tree-pollen counts. But an illustrative video that went viral this week challenged the limits of credibility.

It shows an enormous cloud of yellow-green smoke in the Pine Barrens erupting from pine trees that were rammed by a digger loader.

“When my husband [Eric] said the pollen’s bad, I probably should’ve taken his word for it. Crazy!” Jennifer Henderson, of Millville, N.J., wrote next to the video she posted on Facebook.

As surreal as it appears, it has been known to happen, according to experts at the Asthma Center, where Dvorin calculates the daily counts.

“That was impressive,” Dvorin said Wednesday. “It did look real.”

The region happens to be a particularly rich in pine pollen – “unique” in the Northeast, according to the center’s Marc Goldstein — in part due to the presence of the 1.1 million-acre Pine Barrens.

Goldstein says that’s one reason that the center tests for pine allergies, unlike many other practices around the country.

For all the drama of that video, however, allergy-sufferers in and around Philadelphia more likely are under attack from oak pollen, responsible for 75 percent of the grains counted Wednesday.

The daily counts are estimates of the numbers of grains that would pass through a parcel of air about the size of a refrigerator in a 24-hour period. Dvorin’s pollen trap is located on the roof of a Center City building.

Since last Wednesday a veritable harvest of pollen has covered surfaces throughout the region. “We saw the pollen looking yellow on the roof,” Dvorin said. “It’s accumulating.”

Conditions recently — dry and warm — have been ideal for this annual reproductive frenzy.

But pollen-dampening showers are possible Thursday, a welcome prospect for those pining for relief.

Original article published on Philly.com

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