'Thunder fever': How storms can make your hay fever worse and what to do to stop it
dailystar.co.ukweather is being blamed for making 2022 a miserable year for hay fever sufferers.The number of pollen grains in the air might not be any different to past years but their potency is believed to be stronger this summer due to a phenomenon dubbed "thunder fever".And that has spelt trouble for those severely affected by watery eyes and sneezing fits at this time of the year.Read more: Desperate couple sell off possessions and forced to feed kids nothing but ready mealsHay fever is often linked to sunshine with rainy weather thought to lead to a drop in pollen counts.But that's not always the case and thunderstorms can cause an extreme version of the allergy.Thunder fever, which occurs before the start of a storm when the air is normally more humid, leads to classic hay fever symptoms, along with others, more regularly associated with asthma, such as a tight chest, shortness of breath and wheezing.
Explaining the phenomenon, airborne allergens expert Max Wiseberg said: "Humidity breaks pollen grains into smaller allergenic particles.
So one pollen grain becomes two, which raises the pollen count. "But these new pollen grains also turn into a kind of 'super pollen' which appears to be more allergenic than normal pollen, causing more severe reactions in sufferers.
Storms cause great movements in the air, bringing pollen grains down which might have otherwise risen above head height out of harm’s way, and whipping up pollen grains near the ground."To make matters worse, farmers will often work hard to get their fields harvested before a storm which further increases the level of allergens in the air.
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