Thunderstorms and Asthma Attacks: New U.S. Data
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Dust mites, pollen, and many other environmental factors can trigger asthma symptoms like coughing, shortness of breath, and wheezing. A new study suggests that thunderstorms may play a role, too.
The research,presented this week at the 2025 Annual scientific Meeting of the American college of Allergy,Asthma,and Immunology (ACAAI) in Orlando,Florida,found that asthma-related emergency room visits in Wichita,Kansas,jumped fivefold on days with thunderstorms.
“Thunderstorm asthma events have been documented in other regions, most notably the 2016 Melbourne outbreak and studies from Minneapolis-St. Paul and Louisiana,” says Diala Merheb, MD, lead author of the study and an internal medicine resident at the University of Kansas School of medicine in Wichita. “Our study adds local data from Wichita, a Midwestern area where this connection hadn’t been explored before.”
ER Visits for Asthma Went Up 500 Percent on Days With Thunderstorms
The analysis examined more than 4,000 asthma-related emergency department visits over four years in three hospitals in Wichita, Kansas.The study authors classified each visit as occurring on a storm or nonstorm day by using weather records from the National centers for Environmental Information.
They found that 14 percent of asthma-related ER visits occurred on 38 thunderstorm days, which represented just 2 percent of calendar days in the study period.
That averaged out to about 18 asthma ER visits per day during thunderstorms,compared with just 3 per day on nonstorm days – an increase of 500 percent.
The older a person, the greater their risk of a storm-related emergency visit for asthma.But gender, location, and admission or discharge from the hospital didn’t significantly impact the likelihood of an ER visit during a storm.
“Findings support storm-specific public health preparedness,including education and modifications to asthma action plans to ease healthcare burden,” the researchers concluded.
Why Thunderstorms May Trigger Asthma Symptoms
Thunderstorms can exacerbate asthma symptoms through a combination of factors: