Fall is in the air. Chicago evenings have a crisp breeze. But something has been bugging Annie Andrews.
Specifically, bees and wasps and a whole lot of sneezing.
“It’s gotten to a point, like, I couldn’t stop sneezing during a shift,” said the 28-year-old restaurant server. Earlier this week, she thought, “I need to take an allergy pill again.” When she waits tables outside, the insects swarm patrons, who desperately ask her to be moved elsewhere, anywhere the bees and the wasps aren’t.
Chicagoans from all over can likely relate. Pollen has concentrated in the city over the past three weeks, mostly from ragweed. Wednesday counts were the highest recorded so far this year — the last time the area had so much ragweed was in 2018, according to Loyola Medicine.
Allergy season is getting worse, climate science nonprofit Climate Central reports. And shorter winters are contributing to more days with high pollen counts and buzzing insects that can derail residents’ hopes for peaceful patio dining.
A warmer, earlier spring and a later fall frost are lengthening the growing season for plants, giving them more time to release allergy-inducing pollen earlier in the year and for longer. Plant-based allergies in the U.S. come from tree pollen in spring, grass pollen in early summer and weed pollen in summer and fall.
In Chicago, the time between the last spring freeze and the first fall freeze has increased by an average of 21 days since 1970.
“And it’s not just in Chicago,” said Andrew Rorie, associate professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center Division of Allergy and Immunology. “Study after study all around the world (is) showing that, generally, pollen season is lengthening.”
Over the last 55 years, the number of so-called freeze-free days has increased by an average of 20 days in 172 of 198 U.S. cities, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration analyzed by Climate Central.
Not only is the season lengthening, Rorie said, but more pollen is being produced throughout, and the number of peak days — when pollen counts are at their highest — is also increasing.
In the Chicago area, ragweed counts have been unusually high this year, according to Rachna Shah, lead of Loyola Medicine’s Allergy Count. She gathers samples every weekday morning between March and October from the roof of a hospital in Melrose Park, then counts spores and grains under a microscope.
On Wednesday, Shah tallied 148 grains of pollen per cubic meter of air. Any number between 50 and 500 is considered a high count. Earlier in the season, it would take her some 15 to 20 minutes to count — lately, it takes her closer to an hour or an hour and a half.
“This is actually a pattern. For the past month, essentially, I’ve been reporting: Ragweed is high. Ragweed is high,” Shah said. “This year, symptomatically, I’m just seeing a lot more (patients).”
Seasonal pollen symptoms — such as a runny or stuffy nose, itchy or swollen eyes, sneezing and coughing, and trouble breathing — can be inconvenient. But they have very real, daily implications for millions of people in the United States, plaguing 1 in 5 children and 1 in 4 adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Prolonged exposure for people who are susceptible to asthma attacks is also increasing emergency room visits.
“It is really tempting, as the mornings and evenings cool off, to open up the windows and open the house a little bit. That lets all that pollen indoors,” Rorie said.
Most of the allergenic product comes from “boring-looking plants,” Rorie said, which rely on the wind to carry their pollen to reproduce. But just like their growing season is lengthening, so is that of pretty flowers that insects — like bees and, to a lesser extent, wasps like yellow jackets — pollinate, meaning they are active earlier and later in the year.
Outdoor activities in the early fall not only expose people to pollen that can cause allergies, but also to some confused insects.
“They become just a little bit more perturbed and a little more aggressive because they’re kind of running out of food,” Rorie said.
Studies have directly linked higher levels of planet-warming carbon dioxide to a boost in pollen production in plants such as grasses and ragweed. Shah said recent high counts of ragweed can also be connected to the abnormally dry, mild weather for this time of year.
“We’ve had some rain and we’ve had some storms, but we haven’t had a lot. Rain breaks down pollen,” she said. “We’ve also had either mild temperatures or, next week, it’s going to get a little higher.”
It’s the perfect combination for ragweed to bloom, Shah said.
