El Nino to blame for early allergy season

PHOENIX (KSAZ) - Allergy season may be off to an early start, and the warm weather is partly to blame.

El Nino-related weather is causing warmer than usual temperatures which are causing plants to bloom a little earlier this year.

Flowers in bloom, pollen in the air, and temperatures on the rise. All these are contributing to a jumpstart in the valleys allergy season.

"We've seen that the season has started much earlier, and the intensity is much much higher this year, compared to previous years," said Dr. Duane Wong.

Dr. Wong says the pollen count is highest after 5 p.m. up to 10 a.m. the next morning.

"So one of the things you don't want to do is leave your windows open, it's very nice at night, and people are tempted to do that, but if you are an allergy sufferer it will be way worse the next morning," said Dr. Wong.

You can see on an olive branch that the buds are about to bloom, and this is just one of the plants causing allergy problems for Valley residents.

"This warm weather we've had recently is going to cause a lot of our desert trees to pop into bloom very early this year. Usually it's not until mid-march," said Bruce Solomon.

Solomon is with Berridge Nurseries; he tells customers with allergies what trees to avoid.

"As opposed to having to cover things at night to protect them from frost, now we're having to move them into the shade and water them in the shade to keep them happy," said Solomon.