Pollen in Bonn and the region The fight against pollen
Bonn · Yellow pollen is currently spreading in Bonn. This is not only a burden for allergy sufferers, but drivers have to go to the car wash more often, even twice a week.
Now even car owners can see what pollen allergy sufferers suffer from, because the air is full of pollen. The release of birch pollen is unusually early for the season and has already reached its peak. “Permanent sunshine coupled with wind and spring warmth is considered to guarantee abundant pollen release at this time of year”, is the explanation of the German Pollen Information Service.
Christina Endler from the Centre for Medical-Meteorological Research of the German Weather Service (DWD) also confirmed this at the request of the GA. “The persistent dryness, mild temperatures and wind not only favour pollen release, but also the stirring up of dust particles”, she says.
Neither pollen allergy sufferers nor motorists will be happy about the fact that it hardly rains and therefore there is no precipitation to wash out the particles in the air. “Dry soils and soil surfaces in combination with wind can always stir up particles that do not stick to the soil surface”, says Endler.
Almost one in five people in Germany suffers from at least one allergy and almost all car owners in Bonn are probably currently affected by a tenacious, yellow layer on their car paintwork, at least if their car is parked in the vicinity of seed-producing trees. It is not only the pollen of birch, ash and occasional flowering grasses that is spreading at the moment and penetrating even the smallest cracks: Even coniferous trees, which only flower every four to seven years, are now producing an extremely large number of seeds. This increases the chance for many new trees, and seed-eating birds and small mammals will find plenty of food.
Some car owners will put a lot of effort into having their car washed. However, the ADAC has reported that concern about pollen sticking to the car's paintwork and causing damage to the car is unfounded.
Mario Lehmann, the managing director of two car washes in Bonn, however, sees things differently and is convinced that “flower pollen damages the paintwork”. Lehmann recommends using a good paintwork protector at the moment. In the past few days he has had significantly more customers. Some car drivers are even coming twice a week to have their cars professionally freed from the dust coating.
“Corona helps us to cope with the rush”, says Lehmann. Without the current recommendation not to leave the house unnecessarily, there would certainly be more business at his car washes in Dransdorf and Pützchen, he suspects. He carries out about 100,000 car washes there every year and at the moment, he estimates that about 30 per cent more drivers are visiting his car washes than usual at this time of year.
It will be comforting for some car drivers that the German Weather Service has announced that “the count of birch and ash pollen is starting to decrease”.
(Original text; Stefan Hermes, translation John Chandler)
