Spring can feel like the end of the world for allergy sufferers, but in North Carolina this week, it looked that way, too. And it has a name to match: “Pollenpocalypse.”

Massive clouds of sneeze-inducing pollen overtook North Carolina this week, tinting the skies yellow and covering cars, streets and ponds in a fine powder that left footprints on the carpets of unsuspecting residents and made allergy sufferers want to hibernate in a panic room until summer.

Pine tree pollen erupts across the state each spring, but Jeremy Gilchrist, a photographer in Durham, N.C., said he had never before seen the thick yellow-green haze that filled the air on Monday. “It was very weird,” he said.