{"id":6498,"date":"2016-03-24T23:12:22","date_gmt":"2016-03-25T03:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/?p=6498"},"modified":"2016-03-24T23:42:39","modified_gmt":"2016-03-25T03:42:39","slug":"pollen-counts-soar-earlier-than-usual-due-to-warm-spring-temperatures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/2016\/03\/pollen-counts-soar-earlier-than-usual-due-to-warm-spring-temperatures\/","title":{"rendered":"Pollen counts soar earlier than usual due to warm spring temperatures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The recent warming across the Southeast has caused pollen counts to soar. \u00a0In Athens where I live, it seems to me like the usual progression of flowers and their pollen have compressed into one short burst of blooming as temperatures of over 80 F have occurred in many parts of the region, even with cold spells on some nights. \u00a0A lack of rainfall has also helped keep pollen in the air instead of washing it out.<\/p>\n<p>Online Athens reported that &#8220;Atlanta Allergy &amp; Asthma tracks pollen in the Atlanta area, and its gauge hit the red zone this weekend \u2014 2,890 grains of pollen per cubic meter of air on Saturday, 2,651 on Sunday. Pollen didn\u2019t get high until the first week of April last year.&#8221; \u00a0However, they note that pollen counts are not at record levels; that occurred on March 20, 2012. \u00a0You can read the report <a href=\"https:\/\/onlineathens.com\/mobile\/2016-03-22\/pollen-season-starting-early-year?utm_source=WhatCountsEmail&amp;utm_medium=OnlineAthens%20Daily%20Headlines%20&amp;utm_campaign=022616%20new%20Headlines\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF) also published an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.neefusa.org\/nature\/plants-and-animals\/early-blooms-spring\" target=\"_blank\">article<\/a> this week noting that\u00a0many plants and trees are blooming earlier than they did over the past century due to milder winters and earlier spring thaws. \u00a0They also note that in combination with later fall seasons, the length of the growing season in the contiguous 48 states has increased by nearly two weeks since the beginning of the 20<sup>th<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_6499\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6499\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2016\/03\/floating-pollen.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-6499\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-6499\" src=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2016\/03\/floating-pollen-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Source: Waldmaus, Commons Wikimedia\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2016\/03\/floating-pollen-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2016\/03\/floating-pollen-184x138.jpg 184w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2016\/03\/floating-pollen.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-6499\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: Waldmaus, Commons Wikimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2016\/03\/growing-season-length.png\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-6502\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-6502\" src=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2016\/03\/growing-season-length-300x236.png\" alt=\"growing season length\" width=\"300\" height=\"236\" srcset=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2016\/03\/growing-season-length-300x236.png 300w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2016\/03\/growing-season-length-176x138.png 176w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2016\/03\/growing-season-length.png 670w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The recent warming across the Southeast has caused pollen counts to soar. \u00a0In Athens where I live, it seems to me like the usual progression of flowers and their pollen have compressed into one short burst of blooming as temperatures of over 80 F have occurred in many parts of the region, even with cold [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":217,"featured_media":6499,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-and-ag-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6498"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6503,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6498\/revisions\/6503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}