Allergies affect different people at different times throughout the year. The three most common types of pollens are from trees, grasses, and ragweed. Allergic diseases are a major cause of illness and disability in the US, affecting more than 35 million people with upper respiratory symptoms. Pollen allergy (hay fever) is one of the most common chronic diseases.

The first allergy culprit of the year comes from tree pollen, which in Connecticut normally blooms in the months from March to June. Contrary to what many people believe, trees with brightly colored flowers usually do not bother allergy sufferers. Instead, the non-flowering plain looking trees cause the greatest allergy symptoms. Some of the top allergy producing trees in Connecticut are Oak, Birch, Cottonwood, Maple (begins in February), Hickory, Sycamore, Walnut, Beech, and Elm.

Weather plays an important daily role on the actual levels of the allergenic concentrations in the air. When the forecast calls for a warm, dry, breezy day, make sure you take antihistamines or use nasal sprays before venturing outside. These atmospheric conditions favor the greatest concentrations of airborne pollen as the wind transports small, light pollen grains away from the source (trees in this case) and into your nose.

On colder, wet, and more humid days, water vapor in the air condensates onto the pollen grains. This in turn makes the particles heavier, and less likely to be transported away from their source by the wind. This is also seen around daybreak (the coolest part of the day) before the sun comes out and heats up the surface of the earth. The moisture eventually evaporates from the surface of the trees, freeing the pollen and making it airborne again.

The graphic below displays the four day forecast for pollen levels around the Hartford area.

Allergy sufferers, stay updated on future weather forecasts and daily pollen reports.

I am an avid writer and I often find fun things to write about on other websites. One of those websites I frequent is Twitter. Twitter is a pseudo social networking sight with mini blogging capabilities. If you think writing a text message was hard with 160 characters, Twitter restricts you to only 140 characters. Try summarize what you’re doing or thinking in one sentence… it’s not easy!

Anyway, so as I was on Twitter this afternoon/evening, I started noticing a common factor. Many of the people I was following were tweeting (posting a twitter message) about the weather. It’s not like they didn’t have a huge spectrum to comment about. The picture above is a snap shot of what was happening. Everything from tornado warnings in red, blizzard warnings in orange, and flood warnings in green.

That got me thinking. Are we at a time that we no longer are content with hearing about weather warnings from the chief meteorologist at your favorite TV station? We no longer pay attention to the alerts as they scroll across our screen? Do people still tune into their NOAA radios?

As many people know, I currently work at WeatherBug. We do have the desktop application that was very revolutionary at its inception. Now folks at work or in front of the computer could receive near real-time alerts as soon as they’re issued.

The chirping WeatherBug app is still as strong as ever, but I do see a competitor from Twitter. Check out a screen capture from my twitter feed.

Not only did many of these warnings come out in real-time, but they lack the generic tone of a NWS alert. If I lived in North Carolina (and weren’t a meteorologist) today, I would have sat in my basement with my wireless internet and continually pressed refresh on twitter for updates.

I think it will be very interesting to see how Twitter will effect the news-delivering in the upcoming few years. Before you forget, click on the button to the right and add us to your Twitter!

It’s only March, but preliminary hurricane forecasts for the 2009 season are already being made. The Atlantic hurricane season officially begins on June 1st. Ok, so what if the National Hurricane Center (NHC) predicts storm activity will be above normal this season. Does that mean Connecticut has a legitimate shot at seeing one? Are we out of the woods if they say it will be a slow season? Here’s what I found.

All forecasters start in the past to make a prognosis for the future, and that’s exactly where we’ll begin. As seen in the graphic to the right, there have only been a handful of hurricanes throughout the 154 year period that made a second (They all hit LI first) landfall in CT. The most notable may have been the 1938 hurricane, most properly nicknamed, “The Long Island Express”. The storm claimed 688 lives and damaged or destroyed more than 75,000 buildings in its path with sustained winds of 115 mph and a forward speed greater than 50 mph.

Hurricane Carol in 1954 and Hurricane Gloria in 1985 were reminders that CT was still vulnerable to the awesome power of Mother Nature and the destructiveness of hurricanes. Although unlikely, history reminds us that we are not invincible to these storms and they will strike again. Unfortunately, today’s youth in CT are most likely under the assumption that hurricanes only strike the Gulf States and Florida. If the every 30 or so year rule continues, the next one is not that far away.
There are other atmospheric/oceanic players that contribute into whether or not CT will have an increased/decreased chance in seeing any hurricanes this year. One of them is the ENSO (El Nino-Southern Oscillation) phase. The tables below indicate the frequency of landfalling hurricanes for the Southwest and Southeast Connecticut shorelines during the different phases of ENSO over a 154 year period.

After analyzing these tables, it is clear that a hurricane has never made landfall during a La Nina year in CT. The odds for a landfalling hurricane increase with a neutral ENSO and even more during El Nino years. We are currently in a weak La Nina phase, which is not conducive to any landfalling hurricanes this year. March 2009 model forecasts of ENSO predict that the La Niña pattern will decrease in strength and trend towards a neutral phase by late spring. The models diverge during the summer, where the dynamical model runs are consistent with a weak El Nino signal present heading into September and the statistical model runs all hold a weak La Nina throughout the rest of the year. The models may be viewed at http://iri.columbia.edu/climate/ENSO/.

What does all of this mean? Connecticut is soon going to be due for a category 1 or 2 hurricane (3 is not out of the question but has never been observed) to make landfall. If a storm similar to the 1938 hurricane were to happen this day in age, the devastation would be catastrophic. However, if the La Nina phase holds on through the hurricane season, I think the Connecticut Coastline will be spared this year. Even if the ENSO phase becomes positive (El Nino), Connecticut has between a 3-6% of being struck by a hurricane, so I wouldn’t put my money on it. Stay tuned to my ENSO updates for further analysis.

What a week it has been for weather across the country.

Central Plains: Just when residents of the Central Plains thought spring was starting, they were in for a rude awakening. Last week temperatures were above average for the entire region, some places reaching 60º (15º above average). That warm feeling and the belief spring was coming left faster than you can say sublimation. Beginning Monday morning, a strong system delivered late season blizzard conditions, dumping between 6 inches and a staggering 37 inches across Wyoming. To make matters even worse, now the residents are dealing with some of the worst flooding in recent memory. The National Weather Service issued a Civil Emergency Message saying

As of Wednesday afternoon, the Elm River at Westport has reached all time record levels. As a result, the Elm River has begun to flow into the northern portion of Moccasin Creek.

This is not a good situation for those folks and it will continue to get worse. There are reports of bridges collapsing and entire interstate highways completely closed.

South: As I go for the award for “Worst Transition Ever”, those same snow storms previously mentioned spawned tornadoes across Texas and Arkansas. This phenomenon isn’t as rare as you’d think. About once a year, a strong low pressure system moves in from the west, bringing a grab bag of weather to any state in its path. On the southern end of this storm, you will many times find severe thunderstorms. These thunderstorm soaked southern locations with up to 6 inches of rain.

Alaska: As you may or may not have heard, there is a volcano erupting to the southeast of Anchorage. In fact, I’d be willing to but that if Sarah Palin looked out her back door, she could see volcanic ash rising into the sky. On a serious note, the melting of glaciers caused by the eruption has in turn caused seriously flooding concerns for Alaskan officials. Rivers are up as much as 25 feet above normal heights with the dirty as mixing with the water.

The week isn’t over yet, and the east coast will have some rain showers all day tomorrow. At least there isn’t 2 feet of snow or a volcano right?