Runny nose? Itchy eyes? Feeling under the weather? It’s that time of the year again, with the nicer weather also comes the allergy season.

The perfect ingredients for high pollen days include warm temperatures, breezy conditions and dry weather (sound like our current weather pattern?) Pollen counts are lower during cooler and wet days, however that doesn’t mean you are in the clear if you suffer from allergies. According to pollen.com, the pollen count is the worst during the spring and in the early mornings for our area. You can see on the image below from pollen.com, practically the entire state is red.

We get our pollen count from a local source, the Topeka Allergy and Asthma Clinic. Currently, Elm is high, with a pollen count of 1,914, followed by Cedar (moderate: 391), Maple (moderate: 377), Alternaria (light: 30) and other mold spores (light).

What do those numbers mean? The pollen count is bases on the number of particles per one cubic meter of air. Pollen counts ranging from 0 to 250 are considered low, pollen counts between 250 and 100 are moderate, pollen counts between 1,000 and 10,000 are heavy (or high) and for 10,000 and above, that is very heavy. You can find more information
here. Basically, very sensitive people will still suffer with a low count, whereas people that are only slightly allergic will suffer on very high days.

You can find an updated pollen count on our Web site every day. We also keep the numbers updated on our 24/7 weather channel, channel 197 on Sunflower Broadband.