What is a pollen count?

Mathematical Achoo!: Great question. Pollen count measures how much pollen and what type of pollen in a cubic unit of air. When low, extremely sensitive people feel it. Moderate: many sensitive people may feel it. High: most sensitive people feel it. Very high: almost all sensitive people feel it. Hope this helps.

A level of pollen: The pollen counts you see are done by collecting pollen on special equipment, staining the pollen, and manually calculating the number of different pollen grains in a volume of air. This number correlates to high, medium and low levels of pollen and gives you an idea about whether it might aggravate allergy symptoms.

Local pollen levels: Technically, it's a specific number: pollen grains/cubic meter/24hr at a certain location. True counts are collected by device and read by hand, and include specifics. We measure pollen for our patients to customize treatment, based on results of our allergy testing. For them, weather reports of "pollen is high" in spring is like saying "it's warm" in summer-"tell me something I don't know!"