With the return of the cold, the growth of the vegetation will slow down and the pollen causing allergic reactions will stop spreading.
After milder temperatures than normal for the season, wintry weather sets in over France with negative temperatures expected this week. And this return of the cold is good news for allergy sufferers.
It “will neutralize the pollination of trees, and those allergic to pollen will be relieved”, explains on BFMTV Pascale Couratier, director of the French Association for the Prevention of Allergies.
With the mild temperatures, “we see that the trees are budding and at the same time they are starting to release pollen, which is abnormal at this time of year”, explains Édouard Seve, allergist doctor and vice-president of the union of allergists.
“There from Christmas we started to have a little bit of it”
The national aerobiological monitoring network has indeed noted for a week in its forecasts a high rate of hazel pollen in the Grand Est region.
“We are almost a month ahead of the pollens: usually the first pollens, especially the hazel tree, start around February, and there from Christmas we started to have a little bit of it,” says Édouard Seve.
But the cold will indeed “allow the vegetation to slow down, the buds will develop less”, and the pollen will stop spreading, explains on our antenna Philippe Gaillard, arborist of cider apple trees in Sommervieu (Calvados). He is also delighted because it “could make it possible to avoid future frosts in the spring on the flowers”, and therefore to reduce his harvests.
The allergist emphasizes having “the impression that from year to year [les allergies] happen earlier and earlier and that it lasts longer and longer”.
