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Allergy Sufferers Left Miserable With More Trees Producing Pollen Than Usual

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- The greenish yellow coating on everything is going to be making life miserable for the foreseeable future.

As WCBS 880's Sean Adams reported, beware of the green dusting of pollen on your car, because it might just make you sneeze.

"Just think about everything layering on your eyes and nose and the itching, the grittiness," said Dr. Leonard Bielory of Rutgers University.

When Bielory peers through his microscope to count spores, he is seeing a witch's brew. Grass has joined the trees, and more trees are producing pollen than usual -- they started early.

It was a mild winter, but the late blizzard made them pause, so the trees are making up the difference.

"Trees and grass overlap; it's just usually birch and oak. Usually other trees have already finished," Bielory said. "Those other trees, which contribute 50 percent of what we are seeing in pollen normally would be done by now."

He figures it will be another week to 10 days before elm, cedar, maple and pine trees simmer down.

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