For those of us who suffer from seasonal allergies, this year is turning out to be one of the worst. I thought it was just the Dallas / Fort Worth metropolitan area, due mainly to the severe Texas drought, but this mess is nationwide. The South and Midwest are particularly hard-hit. Pollen counts in individual counties are setting records. A clinic at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, for example, measured 11,000 grains of pollen per cubic meter this past Tuesday, the worst they’ve seen. Normal pollen counts for this time of year don’t exceed 2,000 grains per cubic meter. Aside from the past year’s drought here in Texas (which is starting to diminish for most of the state), an unusually warm winter is exacerbating the pollen explosion. Yes, it snows in Texas! We used to get heavy snow and ice every year in the DFW area. But, within the past 20 years, I’ve noticed a considerable decline in cold weather days. We haven’t had snow in DFW since February 2011. This doesn’t bode well for summer, and I don’t want to get into a climate-warming debate. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to soak my burning eyes in Visine again.
Chief Writing Wolf 