Yellow-tinted Water around Nome Identified As Spruce Pollen

Observation by Gay Sheffield:

Collected a sample and Dr. Dean Stockwell (University of Alaska Fairbanks-College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences) confirmed it was pollen - spruce pollen. He has sent the sample on to have it identified to which species of spruce this came from. Susan Harry of the Tanana Valley Clinic provided the enlarged pollen sample photo. Will loop you in when the results are returned. Anyway, there have been a number of reports from the Norton Sound area and wanted to let LEO know that what happened in Nome was confirmed spruce pollen. That's a lot of pollen! My question is...what is making the spruce tree pollen load so immense this year?

Comments from LEO Editors:

This definitely seems to be a heavy pollen year! The LEO Network has received four observations this year documenting the unusual abundance of pollen. In Stebbins, observers noticed a yellow-tinted film on ocean water. In St. Mary's, pollen created a film on top of water collected in rain water catchment systems. In Chuathbaluk, the pollen became visible in the air as it was swept up by the wind into a dust devil. Other residents in Nome have noted the unusual yellow tint to the ocean water and commented that others in Golovin and Koyuk are seeing similar phenomena.

To learn more about the pollen counts this year relative to previous years, we have forwarded this post to the US Forest Service.