Extreme birch pollen warning for the weekend

PollenPollen.Photo: Pixabay

Abundant birch pollen

For the weekend, extreme spread of birch pollen is expected in many parts of southern Norway. Here are the advice you should follow to avoid the worst allergy symptoms.

 

Summer temperatures are expected over large parts of southern Norway, coinciding with birch blooming being at its peak.

Extreme amounts of birch pollen

The pollen warning from Norway’s Asthma and Allergy Association warns of extreme spread of birch pollen in Eastern Norway.

According to pollen analyst Hallvard Ramfjord, the spread may also be extreme in other parts of southern Norway.

– The lesson learnt  in the last ten years is that the largest spread of birch pollen is in the South-East. The farther north you go, the less the amount of Pollen, Ramfjord says. On a side note, if you are in western Norway, birch pollen is a constant nuisance through the whole pollen season.

Advice to reduce allergy symptoms

The birch pollen season in eastern Norway lasts for about three weeks and will be over around May 17th.

Ramfjord and Norway’s Asthma and Allergy Association have the following advice for those who are allergic:
* Take your medicine regularly and preventative, even if you have few or no symptoms.

* Do not sleep with the window open. If you choose to have the window open – use some form of protection in front of the window that catches the pollen.

* There are filters that can be attached to the car’s air conditioner that prevents pollen from getting into the car.

* Do not hang your clothes to dry outside.

Leave the pollen behind

If you are very allergic and simply want to escape from the birch pollen, then a solution is to go up and away. In the mountains, the birch polling season is not yet in progress.
– We have a measurement station at Geilo, and blooming has not started in the mountains yet, says Hallvard Ramfjord.

When the pollen season is over in Eastern Norway -around May 20th – it will start in the mountains.

The pollen season is of course a much more prolonged affair along the coast.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today