El Niño years likely bring longer and stronger pollen seasons to Auckland

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2025-09-16 10:18

New Zealand

PHOTO: Mohammad Hosein Safaei/Unsplash

New research finds that seasonal allergy sufferers might have a harder time during El Niño years. NZ researchers looked at data from three grass pollen seasons in Auckland - each one corresponding to a La Niña, El Niño, or neutral phase. The pollen season during the La Niña phase was shorter and less intense than the other two phases, which the team thinks is due to increased summer rains from La Niña conditions suppressing more grass pollen. However, the researchers note they worked with a limited dataset, and call for more robust pollen monitoring across the motu.

Expert Reaction

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Rewi Newnham, Professor of Physical Geography and study author, Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington, comments:

"Despite much speculation about how pollen allergies (especially hayfever and asthma) are affected by the El Niño Southern Oscillation cycle, until now we have lacked the data to know for sure. New research reporting airborne pollen monitoring in Auckland at last provides the data to show that El Niño summers in Auckland are likely to have higher levels of pollen – and therefore allergy response – than La Niña and neutral phases and helps to explain why."

Last updated: 16 Sep 2025 10:33am

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conference: Aerobiology

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Organisation/s: Victoria University of Wellington, University of Auckland, Massey University

Funder: The work was part-funded by Auckland Medical Research Foundation (Senior Research Fellowship 3725270), Life AI Corp (6001213) and New Zealand Health Research Council (HRC 22/540).

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