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Central Texas has two pollen seasons, not one. Which of them reaches your roof is what decides your plan.

Cedar comes first — mid-December through February, peaking in January. It is fine enough that you will never see it on the glass from the ground, but it films, and a light rain does not move it.

Live oak follows — late February through April, peaking in March. That is the yellow you spend six weeks wiping off the car. Whatever is on the car is on the panels; the difference is that nothing up there gets wiped down.

If cedar is the only one that reaches you, one visit a year does it. If you have live oaks as well — and most of the Hill Country and anywhere west of Austin does — the second visit is the one that earns its keep: one after cedar, one after the oak drops, so neither season sits on the glass while the next one lands on top of it.

And the reason it matters is not really this month’s output. Soiling is shade, and shade is resistance — a shaded cell stops generating while the cells around it push current through it, and that becomes heat. Cleaning is how you stop the array spending years running hot.

The full picture — both pollen seasons, why rain does not clean panels, and when it is actually best to clean — is on our solar panel cleaning page.