Follow Us
*Disclaimer: HeyAllergy® provides all clinical services furnished to patients in California, Florida, Texas, Illinois, Nevada, Pennsylvania. In New York, clinical services are furnished by Hey Allergy Medicine.
Real-time pollen data for Irvine — updated daily.
Irvine's tree pollen profile reflects both its master-planned landscaping and the preserved natural areas that surround the city. Coast live oak is a dominant allergen — these trees grow throughout the Irvine Open Space Preserve, Bommer Canyon, Quail Hill, and the residential villages where they were incorporated into landscape designs. Irvine Regional Park, Orange County's first regional park (created from an 1897 gift of a 160-acre oak grove), contains trees dating to the 1400s and produces substantial oak pollen that drifts into adjacent neighborhoods. Sycamore trees line many of Irvine's streets and creek corridors, releasing both pollen and fine irritating fibers from seed pods. Eucalyptus groves are found throughout the city — Peters Canyon Regional Park contains a historic eucalyptus grove where the Army staged mock battles during World War II. Ash, pine, and pepper trees (Schinus molle) are common in residential landscaping. Mulberry trees produce extremely allergenic pollen. Olive trees pollinate from April into May with fine powdery pollen. The master-planned village design means tree planting is systematic rather than random — each village has specific landscape plans, creating predictable but concentrated pollen sources in parks, medians, and common areas. The 16,000 acres of preserved open space within Irvine's boundaries contain native oak woodlands, chaparral, and riparian vegetation that produce natural pollen loads beyond what any urban landscaping plan controls. The Santa Ana Mountains to the northeast, rising to over 5,600 feet at Santiago Peak, funnel wind through canyons carrying additional tree pollen from wild vegetation.
Grass pollen is a significant allergen in Irvine due to the city's extensive park system and landscaped common areas. Bermuda grass is the dominant warm-season grass used in residential yards, village parks, school grounds, athletic fields, and the Orange County Great Park — a 1,300-acre public space on the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro that includes extensive playing fields, sports complexes, and open lawn areas. Ryegrass is commonly used for winter overseeding and produces pollen from late winter through spring. The Irvine Open Space Preserve contains native grass meadows that produce natural grass pollen. The San Joaquin Marsh — a 300-acre freshwater wetland and the largest coastal freshwater marsh in Southern California — supports riparian grasses and wetland vegetation. Irvine's master plan integrates green space at every level: each village has neighborhood parks, community parks, and trail connections to larger open spaces. This design philosophy means grass pollen sources are distributed uniformly across the city rather than concentrated in a few locations. The Great Park's conversion from a military base to a park has created one of the largest contiguous grass-and-turf areas in Orange County, producing substantial pollen during the warm season. Irvine's position roughly 7 miles inland provides warmer, drier conditions than beach cities, extending the grass pollination season and keeping airborne pollen concentrated.
Fall weed pollen in Irvine comes from both urban edges and the extensive wildland interface surrounding the city. Ragweed is the primary fall allergen, with lightweight pollen distributing across Orange County. California sagebrush (Artemisia californica) is the signature plant of the coastal sage scrub habitat that the Irvine Open Space Preserve was specifically created to protect — this endangered ecosystem covers hillsides throughout Bommer Canyon, Quail Hill, Shady Canyon, and the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park. During fall, sagebrush produces copious allergenic pollen that drifts from preserved open space into adjacent residential villages. Russian thistle (tumbleweed) grows in disturbed soils along development edges and in the transitional zones between villages and open space. Pigweed and amaranth colonize disturbed urban soils. Mugwort contributes fall pollen. Santa Ana wind events — the hot, dry offshore winds named for the Santa Ana Canyon approximately 10 miles northeast — dramatically impact Irvine during fall. The winds carry desert dust, redistribute weed pollen from the surrounding wildlands into residential areas, and drop humidity to single digits. Irvine's extensive open-space buffer means the wildland-urban interface is longer than in fully developed cities, creating more pathways for windborne pollen to move from natural areas into neighborhoods.
Irvine's indoor allergen profile reflects its relatively new housing stock and mild year-round climate. Dust mites thrive in the moderate humidity of coastal Orange County homes year-round. Mold grows in bathrooms, kitchens, and HVAC systems — the proximity to the San Joaquin Marsh and other wetland areas can elevate ambient moisture in adjacent neighborhoods. Pet dander is a constant allergen in a city with high pet ownership. Irvine's air quality is generally better than inland Orange County cities like Santa Ana or Anaheim, but freeway corridors (I-5, I-405, SR-133, and SR-261) generate vehicle emissions, and the city sits within the South Coast Air Quality Management District's jurisdiction where ozone can be problematic during summer heat events. Proximity to John Wayne Airport contributes aviation emissions. During Santa Ana wind events, the open-space corridors that normally provide clean-air buffers become channels for desert dust and wildfire smoke. Wildfire risk is real along Irvine's wildland-urban interface — fires in the surrounding Santa Ana Mountains and San Joaquin Hills can produce smoke that settles over the city, particularly when temperature inversions trap polluted air at ground level. The Great Park's balloon ride — Irvine's signature landmark — occasionally suspends operations during high-wind and poor-air-quality events, serving as a visible indicator of atmospheric conditions.
Severity: Moderate
Irvine's allergy season begins in late January when mild coastal Orange County winters trigger pollination from cypress and juniper trees. By February, oak and ash trees start releasing pollen — earlier than most of the country due to the frost-free Mediterranean climate. March brings the first significant pollen loads as multiple tree species pollinate simultaneously. Irvine's extensive preserved open space means natural oak woodlands in Bommer Canyon, Quail Hill, and along the Jeffrey Open Space Trail produce wild tree pollen in addition to urban landscape sources. Winter is typically the period of best air quality, with cooler temperatures reducing ozone. However, Santa Ana wind events can occur from October through March, bringing sudden shifts from clean marine air to hot, dry desert conditions that redistribute allergens. Rain during winter months provides temporary pollen relief but promotes mold growth in soil, vegetation, and homes.
Severity: High to Severe
April through June is Irvine's most challenging allergy period. Late tree pollen from olive, sycamore, and pepper trees overlaps with surging grass pollen from the city's extensive park system and the Orange County Great Park's playing fields. May typically sees the highest combined pollen counts, with tree, grass, and early weed pollens all present. The coastal May Gray and June Gloom marine layer patterns moderate temperatures and suppress some pollen on overcast mornings, but Irvine's position 7 miles inland means the marine layer burns off by midday more often than in beach communities. When the fog lifts, warm sunny afternoons drive pollen counts higher. Ozone levels begin climbing as temperatures rise and sunlight reacts with vehicle emissions from surrounding freeway corridors. The San Joaquin Marsh and other wetland areas produce additional biological aerosols during warm weather. This is the season when Irvine's carefully designed green spaces — the very feature that makes the city attractive — produce their highest pollen output.
Severity: Moderate (pollen) to High (air quality)
Summer shifts the primary respiratory challenge from pollen toward air quality. Grass pollen declines through July though Bermuda grass continues pollinating in warm weather. Ozone peaks during summer heat events, particularly during multi-day heat waves when temperature inversions trap polluted air over the LA Basin. Irvine's open spaces provide cleaner air than fully urban areas but cannot fully buffer against regional ozone. August and September bring wildfire risk from the surrounding Santa Ana Mountains, San Joaquin Hills, and more distant fires. The Irvine Open Space Preserve and surrounding wildlands — 57,500 preserved acres of the Irvine Ranch — contain highly flammable chaparral and coastal sage scrub. Fire risk increases dramatically during Santa Ana wind events, which can begin as early as September. When fires burn in the open-space areas, smoke moves directly into adjacent residential villages. Late August marks the beginning of fall weed pollen from sagebrush in the preserved coastal sage scrub surrounding the city.
Severity: Moderate to High
October brings peak weed pollen as ragweed, sagebrush, mugwort, and saltbush pollinate simultaneously. The coastal sage scrub habitat preserved throughout Irvine's open space produces concentrated sagebrush pollen that drifts into residential areas. This period coincides with Santa Ana wind season — hot, dry offshore winds that funnel through mountain passes and canyons, dropping humidity to single digits and carrying desert dust across the region. During events, the open-space corridors that normally provide green buffers become wind channels. The wildfire risk peaks in October and November before winter rains arrive. December typically offers the year's best allergy relief as weed pollen declines, rain washes allergens from the air, and temperatures moderate. However, indoor allergens persist year-round, and the shift to enclosed living during cooler months can increase exposure to dust mites, mold, and pet dander.
Irvine presents a paradox for allergy sufferers. The city's master plan — conceived by the Irvine Company beginning in the 1960s to develop a 93,000-acre ranch stretching from the Santa Ana Mountains to the Pacific — prioritized parks, trails, and open space as core design principles. Today, over 16,000 acres (fully one-third of the city) are permanently preserved as open space, and the surrounding Irvine Ranch encompasses 57,500 acres of protected wildlands. This is exceptional by any urban planning standard. But for allergy sufferers, it means living inside one of the most systematically landscaped environments in America, surrounded by one of the largest preserved coastal sage scrub ecosystems in California. Every village has parks. Every park has trees and grass. Every preserved canyon has native vegetation producing pollen. The very features that make Irvine consistently ranked among America's best places to live — the oak woodlands of Bommer Canyon, the trails through Quail Hill, the playing fields of the Great Park — are also the features that produce its allergen load.
Irvine's open-space design creates an unusually long wildland-urban interface — the boundary where natural vegetation meets developed neighborhoods. Villages like Shady Canyon, Orchard Hills, Portola Springs, and Turtle Rock sit directly adjacent to preserved wildlands containing coastal sage scrub, chaparral, and oak woodlands. During fall, California sagebrush produces copious pollen that drifts from preserved hillsides into these neighborhoods. During Santa Ana wind events, the open-space corridors that normally provide scenic hiking and clean-air buffers become channels for dust and redistributed pollen from miles of surrounding wildlands. During fire season, the same interface means wildfire smoke can move directly from burning chaparral into residential areas. Residents of villages adjacent to open space experience measurably different allergen profiles than those living in Irvine's commercial core near Irvine Spectrum or the denser areas near UCI. Understanding your village's position relative to open space helps predict your specific pollen exposure.
The Orange County Great Park — Irvine's signature public amenity on the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro — represents one of the largest land-use conversions in Orange County history. When Lennar Corporation purchased the 4,700-acre former military base in 2005, they demolished 2,000 buildings and began converting concrete runways and hangars into parks, playing fields, and planned neighborhoods. The resulting Great Park includes 1,300 acres of public space with extensive turf fields, sports complexes, and landscaped areas. For allergy sufferers in surrounding neighborhoods (Great Park Neighborhoods, Pavilion Park, Beacon Park), this conversion created a new, large-scale source of grass pollen that didn't exist during the base's military years. The playing fields and open lawns produce Bermuda grass and ryegrass pollen throughout the warm season. The park's ongoing development continues to alter the local allergen landscape as additional phases of landscaping are installed.
The University of California, Irvine campus and the adjacent San Joaquin Marsh create a distinctive microclimate in central Irvine. The 1,475-acre UCI campus includes extensive landscaping, eucalyptus groves, and maintained lawns that produce pollen throughout the academic year. The San Joaquin Marsh — approximately 300 acres and the largest coastal freshwater marsh remaining in Southern California — supports riparian vegetation, wetland grasses, and cattails that produce pollen and biological aerosols. The marsh also creates elevated ambient moisture in surrounding neighborhoods, promoting mold growth. During morning hours, before sea breezes disperse airborne particles, pollen from the campus and marsh area can concentrate in the still air of adjacent communities like University Park, Turtle Rock, and University Hills. The UCI campus also hosts research programs in environmental health and allergy science, making it both a source of allergens and a center for understanding them.
HeyAllergy offers telemedicine appointments with board-certified allergists and immunologists licensed in California. Book a virtual consultation from your home in any Irvine village — Woodbridge, Northwood, Turtle Rock, Woodbury, Great Park Neighborhoods, or anywhere in Orange County. Have allergy blood tests ordered at a convenient local lab and receive a personalized treatment plan based on your specific triggers. HeyPak sublingual immunotherapy drops ship directly to your door and treat the root cause of allergies by building tolerance to the specific allergens triggering your symptoms — whether oak, sycamore, Bermuda grass, sagebrush, ragweed, dust mites, or mold. In a city designed around green space and outdoor living, treating the underlying allergic sensitivity helps you fully enjoy the trails, parks, and preserved wildlands that make Irvine one of America's most livable cities.
April through June is the worst period, when peak tree and grass pollen overlap from the city's extensive park system, Great Park fields, and surrounding preserved open space. May typically has the highest combined counts. October brings a second peak from sagebrush and ragweed weed pollen, often worsened by Santa Ana wind events.
The most common allergens in Irvine are coast live oak pollen, sycamore, Bermuda grass, California sagebrush, ragweed, dust mites, mold, and pet dander. Eucalyptus, ash, olive, mulberry, and pine also affect residents. A blood allergy test identifies your specific triggers.
The 16,000 acres of preserved open space within Irvine and the 57,500 acres of surrounding Irvine Ranch wildlands produce natural pollen — especially California sagebrush from coastal sage scrub habitat and oak from native woodlands. Villages adjacent to open space experience higher exposure than the commercial core. However, the cleaner air quality of open-space areas partially offsets the pollen burden.
Yes. HeyAllergy provides telemedicine appointments with board-certified allergists and immunologists licensed in California. Book a virtual consultation from anywhere in the state, have allergy blood tests ordered at a lab near you, and start a personalized treatment plan without visiting a clinic. No referral needed and no waitlist.
HeyPak sublingual immunotherapy uses customized liquid drops placed under your tongue daily. The drops contain precise doses of the specific allergens triggering your symptoms — whether oak, sagebrush, Bermuda grass, dust mites, or mold. Over time, your immune system builds tolerance, reducing allergic reactions and medication dependence. Most patients notice improvement within 3 to 6 months.
HeyAllergy accepts Medicare and most major PPO health plans, including United Healthcare, Health Net, Anthem Blue Cross, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Blue Shield, Cigna, Aetna, Humana, Oscar, and Tricare. Contact your insurance provider with Tax ID: 85-0834175 to confirm your specific telemedicine coverage.
Yes. The Orange County Great Park's conversion from a military base to a 1,300-acre public park created extensive turf fields and landscaping that produce Bermuda grass and ryegrass pollen during warm months. Residents in surrounding neighborhoods like Great Park Neighborhoods, Pavilion Park, and Beacon Park are most affected.
HeyAllergy offers fast scheduling with no waitlist. Book a telemedicine appointment with a board-certified allergist and connect from home using your phone, tablet, or computer. Irvine and Orange County residents can access specialist allergy care immediately without waiting weeks for a local opening.
Irvine, California, is the most successful master-planned city in the United States — and that planning extends, whether intentionally or not, to the city's allergy experience. When the Irvine Company began designing a new city from its 93,000-acre ranch in the 1960s, architect William Pereira created a plan for 22 self-contained villages surrounding a new University of California campus, each connected by trails to parks and open space. Today, with approximately 310,000 residents, Irvine has been named the top-selling master-planned community in the western United States for six consecutive years, consistently ranked among America's safest and best places to live. But the same planning principles that make Irvine exceptional — integrated green space, preserved natural areas, systematic landscaping — create an allergen profile unlike any other city in Orange County. Over 16,000 acres within the city (one-third of its total area) are permanently preserved as open space, and the surrounding Irvine Ranch encompasses 57,500 protected acres of wildlands. For allergy sufferers, this means living inside a meticulously designed landscape that is simultaneously beautiful and botanically productive.
The story of Irvine's allergen landscape begins with the Irvine Ranch itself. Irish immigrant James Irvine assembled the ranch from Spanish and Mexican land grants in the late 19th century. In 1897, the Irvine Company's gift of a 160-acre oak grove created California's first regional park — Irvine Regional Park — which today contains oaks dating to the 1400s and remains one of the most concentrated sources of tree pollen in Orange County. Over the following century, the Irvine Company preserved approximately 60 percent of the original ranch as permanent open space. This preservation created an extraordinary natural buffer around the city: the Irvine Open Space Preserve protects thousands of acres of native habitat designated as a Natural Landmark by both California and the U.S. Department of the Interior. The mosaic of protected habitats includes chaparral shrub thickets, riparian wetlands, native grass meadows, oak woodlands, and the extremely rare coastal sage scrub — an endangered ecosystem whose signature plant, California sagebrush, is also one of the most allergenic weeds in Southern California. During fall, sagebrush pollen drifts from preserved hillsides into residential villages that were deliberately sited adjacent to these natural areas.
Irvine's village structure creates distinctly different allergen experiences depending on where you live. Each of the city's villages — Woodbridge, Northwood, Turtle Rock, Woodbury, Eastwood, Portola Springs, Orchard Hills, and others — was designed with specific landscape plans, park systems, and trail connections. Villages at the wildland-urban interface (Shady Canyon, Orchard Hills, Portola Springs, Turtle Rock) sit directly adjacent to preserved chaparral and coastal sage scrub, exposing residents to higher levels of sagebrush, native grass, and oak pollen from surrounding hillsides. Villages closer to Irvine's commercial core (near Irvine Spectrum, Irvine Business Complex) have more controlled landscaping and less wildland exposure but more vehicle emission pollution from freeway corridors. The Great Park Neighborhoods, built on the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, sit adjacent to the 1,300-acre Orange County Great Park — whose extensive playing fields and turf areas have created a new large-scale source of Bermuda grass pollen that didn't exist during the base's military years. Understanding your village's specific landscape and proximity to open space is essential for managing allergies effectively in Irvine.
The University of California, Irvine campus and the adjacent San Joaquin Marsh create a distinctive microclimate that affects central Irvine neighborhoods. The 1,475-acre UCI campus includes extensive landscaping, eucalyptus groves dating to early agricultural plantings, and maintained lawns producing pollen throughout the academic year. The San Joaquin Marsh — approximately 300 acres and the largest remaining coastal freshwater marsh in Southern California — supports riparian vegetation, wetland grasses, and cattails that produce pollen and biological aerosols. The marsh also creates elevated ambient moisture in surrounding neighborhoods, promoting conditions for mold growth. Nearby communities including University Park, Turtle Rock, and University Hills experience this combined influence. UCI's environmental research programs have documented these ecological dynamics, making the university both a source of allergens and a center for studying their health effects.
Irvine experiences Santa Ana wind events differently than denser Orange County cities because of its open-space network. During Santa Ana events — hot, dry offshore winds that funnel through mountain passes from the Great Basin desert — the corridors of preserved open space that normally provide scenic trails and clean air become channels for desert dust, redistributed pollen, and, during fire season, wildfire smoke. The winds carry allergens from miles of surrounding wildlands directly into residential villages through the same canyon-to-coast pathways that make Irvine's trail system possible. Wind events typically last two to three days and can occur from September through March. The Irvine Open Space Preserve and surrounding wildlands contain highly flammable chaparral and coastal sage scrub — the same vegetation that produces fall pollen also creates fire fuel. When fires burn in these areas during Santa Ana conditions, smoke moves directly from burning hillsides into adjacent neighborhoods. Irvine's iconic Great Park balloon — the tethered helium balloon that serves as both an attraction and an atmospheric indicator — occasionally suspends operations during high-wind and poor-air-quality events.
HeyAllergy's telemedicine platform connects Irvine and Orange County residents to board-certified allergists and immunologists licensed in California. A virtual consultation from home eliminates the need to travel for specialist care and provides access to medical expertise that understands the unique allergen dynamics of master-planned communities at the wildland-urban interface. Allergy blood tests are ordered at a convenient local lab, and a personalized treatment plan is developed based on your specific triggers. HeyPak sublingual immunotherapy drops ship directly to your door and treat the root cause of allergies by building your immune system's tolerance to the specific allergens driving your symptoms — from coast live oak and sycamore pollen to Bermuda grass, California sagebrush, ragweed, dust mites, and mold. In a city designed around outdoor living, trails, and preserved natural spaces, treating the underlying allergic sensitivity helps you fully enjoy the parks, open spaces, and village amenities that define life in Irvine.
