Well, hello there welcome back. My name is Stephanie Safarian and you're listening to another headlines episode.

As a friendly reminder, we are outlining four environmental leaning news stories in 15 minutes or less.

Why on earth are we doing this?

We're doing this because environmental headlines

tend to get buried under the barrage of headlines about the economy, about entertainment, about crime.

So we're bringing the environmental stories that we need to know to the light. Let's waste no more time and get right into our

first story today which has to do with pollen. It is spring and if you have

allergies you may already be suffering.

The Washington, D.C. area has had not one but two pollen spikes this year,

one in February and then another one in April. So let's talk about what's happening in

Washington DC with regard to pollen first and then we'll discuss why it's

happening. So what's happening? Usually when it comes to pollen season, all my

allergy sufferers you know that there is a gradual buildup of pollen. It spikes,

there's a spike of pollen, everything's yellow everywhere, yellow coats, every surface, and then the pollen spike recedes.

But in Washington, D.C. this year, they have had not one pollen spike, but two spikes.

And both spikes came earlier than they normally do.

One again came in February. This means two opportunities for you to suffer if you have allergies. Now why did this happen?

Many trees, many plants require a certain amount of sustained warm days

to trigger budding and warmer winter temperatures allow these plants and

trees to accumulate the required amount of heat faster,

which of course then causes them to bloom earlier and for longer periods of time.

The DC area in particular just had its second warmest

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