Oak runs March 1 to May 31. Below: every tracked species, its months, and who published them.
Oak pollen typically runs March 1 to May 31 here. In October, the calendar has Ragweed in season.The University of Kentucky College of Agriculture runs its own pollen and mold counts for Lexington (http://wwwagwx.ca.uky.edu/pollen.html), and UK HealthCare frames the local waves as trees in spring, grass in summer, ragweed in fall (sourced in the entries above).
Every bar is a sourced season window; the institution and sentence behind each one are printed in the species cards below. Bars marked ❄ end at Kentucky’s median first frost, a date we compute from NOAA normals rather than copy from a source, because frost is what physically stops frost-tender weeds like ragweed.
Windows are climatological typicals for Kentucky as published by the sources on this page. They say when a season normally runs, not how strong any given day is.
Each card shows the months, the institution that published them, and the verbatim sentence the window came from. Where a date is computed by us rather than published, the card says so in as many words.
March 1 to May 31
“Trees in the spring, grass in summer and ragweed in the fall are all major producers of pollen locally.”
UK HealthCare (University of Kentucky)
UK HealthCare (Lexington) says spring without months; mapped to Mar 1 through May 31. Window covers total tree pollen, not oak alone; oak is a dominant Kentucky hardwood.
June 1 to August 31
“Trees in the spring, grass in summer and ragweed in the fall are all major producers of pollen locally.”
UK HealthCare (University of Kentucky)
Summer mapped to Jun 1 through Aug 31; Kentucky grass pollen typically starts in May, so treat the June start as conservative.
August 1 to October 22 ❄ end derived from median first frost (in season now)
The source puts the peak around September 15.
“Ragweed season rears its ugly head in late summer through November with pollen counts at its highest levels in mid-September in most regions of the U.S.”
UK HealthCare (University of Kentucky) · end date computed by us from NOAA 1991 to 2020 frost normals, not published by the source
Late summer mapped to Aug 1; sourced end November; the mid-September peak sentence is phrased for most regions of the U.S., not Kentucky alone. Practical season end computed from first frost.
What the allergy bodies say, in their words. AAAAI: “Seasonal allergic rhinitis is often caused by tree pollen in the early spring. During the late spring and early summer, grass pollen often cause symptoms. Late summer and fall hay fever is caused by weed pollen.” ACAAI: “Tree pollination begins earliest in the year followed by grass pollination later in the spring and summer and ragweed in the late summer and fall.” For anything about symptoms or treatment, see a clinician.
Ragweed is a short-day annual: it starts shedding pollen as days shorten in late summer and keeps going until cold kills it. The US EPA’s technical documentation for its ragweed pollen indicator puts it plainly: the season “ends in response to cold weather in the fall (i.e., first frost)”, and ragweed “will not continue flowering once temperatures dip below freezing.” EPA’s own analysis truncates every station’s ragweed season at the first fall frost.
This page derives the end date from that rule: Kentucky's median first fall frost is October 22 (NOAA 1991 to 2020 normals, the same number our first frost pages publish), and that is the derived end date on the ragweed bar above. It is a median: about half of years frost earlier, half later, and EPA's indicator work shows fall frosts arriving later than they used to across the northern states, which is exactly why ragweed seasons have been getting longer.
USA-NPN’s Extended Spring Indices measure how early or late spring leaf-out and bloom are running against the 1991 to 2020 normal. The index knows nothing about pollen; it tracks cloned lilacs and honeysuckles. But wind-pollinated trees flower in the same early-spring window it measures, so it is a usable, clearly labelled proxy for whether Kentucky’s tree pollen season is ahead of or behind schedule this year.
The live grid currently holds the finished spring of 2026, shown as history. Tree windows above are not shifted by it; readings for the coming spring start filling in from late January.
Every season window names the extension service, agency or university that published it, with the sentence quoted on the card. Where nobody publishes a window, the page says so instead of inventing one.
Weed bars marked with the frost symbol end on the state’s median first frost, computed from NOAA 1991 to 2020 normals and labelled as derived, on the strength of EPA’s ragweed indicator documentation.
The Spring Index anomaly is a measurement of the spring that has already run. It shifts nothing except spring tree windows, and only while the year’s spring is actually in progress.
Daily counts belong to the certified counting stations of the National Allergy Bureau, and search engines already print them. This site publishes the part nobody prints: the calendar.
Season windows are climatological typicals, each attributed on its card to the institution that published it, with the supporting sentence quoted. Frost-derived weed season ends are computed by us from NOAA 1991 to 2020 median first frost dates and labelled as derived wherever they appear; the frost link is documented by the US EPA’s ragweed pollen indicator technical documentation. Spring Index anomalies are read live in your browser from the USA National Phenology Network (www.usanpn.org, CC BY 4.0) and shown as a labelled proxy for spring tree pollen timing. National picture: every state’s pollen calendar →
Hero image: “Male flowers (catkins) and new spring leaves on a White Oak, Fairfax County, Virginia” by Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0