Cliff Mass: Pollen storm hits Western Washington

A screen grab from a video showing tree pollen flying through the air. A screen grab from a video showing tree pollen flying through the air. Photo: Courtesy Cliff Mass Blog Photo: Courtesy Cliff Mass Blog Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Cliff Mass: Pollen storm hits Western Washington 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

People are suffering.

Around my department, several folks had water eyes, runny noise, sinus pain and a cough.

And it is all due to a massive and sudden influx of tree pollen, aggravated by very unusual weather conditions.

The initiator of these discomfort? A rapid increase of temperature accompanied by dry conditions and lots of wind.

One of the department sufferers, research meteorologist Jeff Baars, sent me a video showing massive pollen coming off a cedar tree. He though the tree was on fire. The video is available at this link.

The local tree pollen numbers were very high Monday and Tuesday: 810 Monday and 699 Tuesday, as reported by the NW Asthma and Allergy Center.

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What a contrast to last week.

The pollen season onset was slowed by the cool temperatures in February and early March, but the rapid onset of well above normal temperatures has caused trees to release large amount of pollen. The last few days have been dry--so no rain out--and the unusually strong easterly winds, particularly Tuesday, pushed clouds of allergens into the air.

Not suffering enough? The warm easterly downslope flow produce stunningly low relative humidity, in fact the driest air of the last year at Sea-Tac Airport. Want proof? Check out the above plot of RH for the last 12 months--it dropped to under 12 percent today.

Another reason to have a dry cough.

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And then there was the torrid temperatures of 79 degrees at Sea-Tac. The warmest March day on record in Seattle (with a record going back to 1891).

And did I mention the wind? Gusting to approximately 35 mph at Sea-Tac from the east. This is quite unusual.

All and all, a challenging day for some. Lots of pollen, very dry, windy and extraordinarily warm for March.

This article first appeared on Cliff Mass's blog.