What Are the Most Common Seasonal Allergens?

Mold, flower, tree, grass, weed pollen and ragweed are the most common triggers of seasonal allergies.

When Is Allergy Season in the Northern Hemisphere?

Allergy season typically starts in late February and lasts until early summer, then picks again in the autumn.

Flowers begin to bud in the earlier months of the year, such as late February. Tree pollen also starts early in the spring, and can leave your car covered with fluffy green tufts if you park under a pollinating tree.

Grass can also trigger allergies in late spring and early summer. Weeds thrive throughout the spring and early summer. Spring can be a truly miserable time for people with allergies.

If the winter has been a wet one, and/or the spring is a very rainy one, mold can go mad and grow rapidly. In this case, mold allergies can last right through until the fall.

In the autumn, ragweed is on the rise. It’s a weed that grows in the US from the East Coast to the Midwest. It blooms from August to November, with peak activity in September each year, just at the time everyone has to head back to work or school after the summer vacation.

Ragweed Is Not the Only Autumn Allergen

There are several other plants in North America that can trigger fall allergies. They include:

* Burning bush
* Cocklebur
* Lamb’s quarters
* Mugwort
* Pigweed
* Sagebrush
* Russian thistle
* Tumbleweed

Living in rural areas increases your risk of seasonal allergies.

Now that we've covered what seasonal allergies are, the main symptoms, and the most common causes, let’s look at some of the ways to relieve them - starting with the spring and summer allergies and moving on to the autumn ones.