Ragweed & Co: Extreme weather brings massive pollen season

A constant ebb and flow of stress – this characterizes this year’s pollen season and has already demanded a lot from allergy sufferers. And it doesn’t get any better. While the precipitation made it possible to breathe a sigh of relief, the above-average rainfall of the past few weeks was ideal for the growth of the weed ragweed (also known as Ambrosia artemisiifolia, ragweed or shredded herb). The flowering of this plant is now imminent.

“In mid-August, ragweed, a very adaptable and resilient plant with a high allergic potency, begins to release its pollen into the wind – and probably in unusually large quantities,” says Markus Berger, head of the pollen information service. He explains: “The beginning and extent of the season depend on the temperature, the hours of light in May and June and the amount of precipitation. The climatic conditions were therefore “optimal” this year.

Now also at higher altitudes

The weed, which was imported from the USA in the middle of the 20th century, poses an increasingly large health and economic problem due to its high allergic potency and its rapid spread. “More and more people are allergic to ragweed. Contact causes them symptoms such as runny nose, red, itchy eyes, urge to sneeze, shortness of breath and very often asthma,” says the doctor.

Vienna, Burgenland, Lower Austria and Styria are the areas in Austria with the highest occurrence of ragweed. But Carinthia is also reporting more and more finds and now reports from Tyrol are also piling up. Up until now, you were safe above 1,000 meters above sea level. But that has also changed: “In the meantime, the plant has adapted so much that it can even thrive at high altitudes,” says Berger. Once ragweed has established itself in an area, it spreads en masse.

More about the current pollen count at www.polleninformation.at