Maybe you are sneezing and wheezing and it causes you to go through a box of tissues. For some folks it can be a difficult time of the year and could be due to environmental allergies. You should always check with your doctor.

This time of the year ragweed is running rather high. However, it is important to note that it is a progression of different types of pollen through the season. The spring season in Western New York starts with tree pollen and then transitions to grass pollen and eventually to weeds by the end of the season. As a result, it is a seasonal trend that happens over several months. This data is provided to us by the folks at Allergy Asthma Immunology of Rochester.

There is also another trend that the News10NBC First Alert team follows and it is with one particular category. For most suffers it is weed pollen with the emphasis on ragweed. The unit of measurement is by grains of concentration (grains/m3). Over a 30-day period during the month of August into early September Rochester went from 15 grains up to 138 grains of weed pollen. This highlights how the increase or decrease of pollen can be dramatic over a short time period. Naturally, this increase can have a big impact on your health.

How can the weather play a part in this atmospheric trend? Well, “nice” weather can actually can be a bad thing if you suffer from environmental allergies. Sunshine, breezy and dry conditions can exasperate the problem and those particular elements will not cleanse the atmosphere. In contrast, rain can bring some short-term relief because of the cleansing factor. The long-term relief will not happen until we get our first killing freeze or frost across the area.

Some reports show that a frost has already occurred for some areas of the Southern Tier of New York State. But closer to Rochester the average date for the first frost or freeze is not until the middle of October. Right now, there is no sign of any significantly colder air through the end of September.