After a bit of a break from it during the rainy weekend, the tree pollen count is expected to be very high for the next several days, and again coat every surface imaginable — including our waterways.
Sound Rivers officials say the yellow muck on area rivers, shorelines, and creeks that could crop up again this week, with the higher tree pollen counts that are expected, isn’t anything alarming, and is likely pine pollen.
To compensate for its large size, pine pollen has two air capsules attached to either side of the pollen grain itself; if you were to look at pine pollen under a microscope, riverkeeepers say it would look like a Mickey Mouse head with the ears being the capsules.
Those air capsules reduce the weight of the pollen grain and make it easier to travel through the air, and when it settles in the water those air capsules make the pollen grains float on the surface. As the wind blows toward shore, the grains are pushed into one another and creates what Sound Rivers officials say can appear to be a latex paint like mass along the shoreline.
