It’s a bad day to be living in North Carolina if you have allergies
Photos taken Monday by photographer Brandon Gilchrist, show aerial pictures of a yellowish green haze blanketing Durham, North Carolina. Pollen was hanging over Durham like a thick cloud and it was coating more than just cars and patio chairs. Gilchrist called the haze a #pollenpocalypse.
The photographer told CNN he was driving around when he noticed a green cloud in the air. “It was surprising to see it up that high,” Gilchrist said.
Although pollen clouds are nothing new for North Carolina, this one in particular was different. In order to capture the magnitude of it, Gilchrist sent up a drone to get a better vantage point.
The photos look almost like they’ve been filtered on Instagram, but Gilchrist says he only lightly edited them before posting them to social media.
Gilchrist, who has also worked as a meteorologist and storm chaser, said pollen can collect in high concentrations in the air depending on the amount of recent rain. Because the day before was “breezy and dry,” it helped create the ideal conditions for pollen granules to congregate.
He went on to say that thunderstorms rolled in two hours after the original photos were taken, eventually sweeping away the pollen in the air while the downpour washed away much of the pollen that had settled on the ground.
By: Maytinee Kramer
