KXAN Q&A: Ragweed season up due to rainy summer
AUSTIN (KXAN) — You may have been feeling a bit more of a tingle and a bit more sneezing if you have allergies this year. This is due to climate change, according to Austin Diagnostic Clinic's Dr. John Villacis.
"There's a lot of research going on into right now, into global warming as to how it affects the allergy the allergy counts," Villacis said. "Hard to say if it's all global warming or natural patterns of the weather, but this summer, we had a lot of rain relative to other years. It wasn't as hot as it was, and so therefore we're seeing a lot of ragweed this year."
For the month of July, we received more than three inches of rain at Camp Mabry, with the most falling on July 23.
August and September were much drier and hotter, which led to ragweed starting a bit sooner than normal.
"I've been here for about 20 years now, and clearly there's a pattern," Villacis said. "Whenever we have a milder summer, a wetter summer, the higher the levels of the ragweed season is. And ragweed season usually goes roughly between the first week or two of September until about the second third week of October, and it really is dependent on the weather."