Thunderstorm Asthma ?

Found this a bit odd.
Thunderstorm Asthma.

At least two people died and hundreds have been rushed to hospitals in Melbourne after a violent thunderstorm triggered a mass asthma attack in the city. The extremely rare event - known as thunderstorm asthma - triggered a six-fold increase in emergency calls and hospital admissions as nearly 2,000 people, called for help. The city ran out of ambulances and turned to police cars to get people to hospitals. Many pharmacies sold out of asthma inhalers. Hope Carnevali, a 20-year-old law student, died on the front lawn of her home after she and her family waited more than 30 minutes for an ambulance.

hisz.rsoe.hu...

Found a few threads on this from a few years back on here.

From 2010, for example...

www.abc.net.au... 'Thunderstorm asthma' reaches epidemic proportion' 'Professor Jo Douglass, an allergy specialist, says Melbourne experienced some very unusual weather conditions in the past day or so with hot weather, humidity and a high pollen count' "Normally we'd see about a tenth of that in a 24-hour period so you can imagine that's a substantial increase." I have never heard of this before ,and 10 times the normal admissions is a big increase. Anyone know if this is a common problem?.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

It's a new one on me.

What could have caused this?

Ahhh, huge amounts of pollen in the air...

Thunderstorm asthma is the triggering of an asthma attack by environmental conditions directly caused by a local thunderstorm. During a thunderstorm, pollen grains can absorb moisture and then burst into much smaller fragments with these fragments being easily dispersed by wind. While larger pollen grains are usually filtered by hairs in the nose, the smaller pollen fragments are able to pass through and enter the lungs, triggering the asthma attack.[1][2][3][4] There have been reports of thunderstorms causing widespread asthma attacks across city populations which have overwhelmed emergency services and hospitals and led to deaths. The phenomenon was first recorded in Melbourne, Australia in 1987, and since then there have been further reports of widespread thunderstorm asthma in Wagga Wagga in Australia; London and Birmingham in the United Kingdom; Naples, Italy,[5] Atlanta, Georgia, USA,[6] and southwest Iran.[7] It has been found 95% of those that were affected by thunderstorm asthma had a history of hayfever, and 96% of those people had tested positive to grass pollen allergies, particularly rye grass.[8] As a rye grass pollen grain can hold up to 700 of these tiny starch granules, measuring 0.6 to 2.5 um, which is small enough to reach the lower airways in the lung.[9] Even so, the conditions surrounding thunderstorm asthma are so strong that a number of those affected during a thunderstorm asthma outbreak may have never experienced an asthma attack before.[10] On November 21, 2016, Melbourne experienced another asthma epidemic during and after a local thunderstorm that overwhelmed the ambulance system and some local hospitals. Four people died after experiencing respiratory issues during the thunderstorm.[11]

en.wikipedia.org...

Answered my own question.

a reply to: Onesmartdog

WOW! My conspiricy side tells Me this may not really be from pollen?! For cryin out loud!? I dunno.
Thanx for puttin this out there/here! Syx...

EDIT: I may have jumped the gun, somewhat. Just clicked the link to that old thread.
(Damnmmit Syx You should have done that first!)
"What?! Who said that?!"
(Umm I did)
"Well who the hell is I?"
(Wow dude take a break. You're talkin to yourself)
"I don't do that. Do I?"
(Ummm wow...)

a reply to: Onesmartdog

Never heard of this before, how horrible for those affected but also really fascinating. Thanks for posting!

Death toll attributed to this is currently at 4. Effects from astma can last several days.

My 2 young sons were affected by this. My workmates daughter was rushed to hospital where the line to get to the front counter was 200m long.

My bro in law was also rushed to hospital, he is an astmatic.

My eldest son gets hayfever just like me, my youngest son has never got it before. But this year we have had a very very wet and cool spring and wild grass and flowers have gone nuts growing and flowering. It has been one of the worst years for hayfever allergies on record.

So many older people who have never had hayfever allergies before in their lives have got it this year.

The Thunderstorm "astma" I dont only put down to the strong winds/front that brought in mass amount of pollen and dust but after the storm front passed, it wasn't cool straight away as normal but still very warm, and due to the preceding rain, it was extremely humid for an hour or so afterwards.

I put it down to a combination of factors, pollen/dust/humidity and air pressure post storm.

The sad thing is, our emergency services couldnt handle all the calls.....imagine if a larger, more serious incident occured that resulted in mass "serious" casualties (not saying those that died of astma werent serious, but you know what I mean).

This is pretty common in the South. The leading edge of a line of thunderstorms is almost ALWAYS laden with plant pollen.

The plants want to spread their genes far and wide. The straight-line winds and damp air on the edge of a storm front causes plant pollen and dust to be propagated at ground level for great distances. So plants evolved to "let fly" when this condition is forming.

Have a sister-in-law that has a bottle of pollen de-sensitizer in the fridge, has to shoot up every time conditions are right. Once I found out about this, I discovered my nose plugs up and I get a cough at the peak as well, although I'm not really allergic to pollen.

My son gets a mild version of this this but I never considered it was pollen but, instead, ozone sinking to ground level. Impacts like a heavy smog day for a little while.

originally posted by: kosmicjack
My son gets a mild version of this this but I never considered it was pollen but, instead, ozone sinking to ground level. Impacts like a heavy smog day for a little while.

If you've got an indoor air cleaner with an activated carbon filter, you could fix any ozone. Cleaners with hopcalite post filters are more efficient at it and will strip all the ozone and trace carbon monoxide out of a house in short order. Along with some of the VOCs.

a reply to: Bedlam

This is pretty common in the South. The leading edge of a line of thunderstorms is almost ALWAYS laden with plant pollen.

Interesting.....Someone interviewed today i was listening to on news radio was saying that it takes three quite unique events to have such a scenario happen and was talking about creating some sort of early warning system after they study the mechanisms behind the event...

originally posted by: hopenotfeariswhatweneed
Interesting.....Someone interviewed today i was listening to on news radio was saying that it takes three quite unique events to have such a scenario happen...

Next time you get those gusty straight line winds in front of a storm, notice what your nose is doing. I sneeze and drip from the peak winds until the rain hits. Especially spring and fall.

a reply to: Bedlam

Dude when my nose stuff up and my eyes are itching i am not paying attention to anything much else than my own misery

Every time I hear people that have lived in areas for long periods of time, say that this is something that has never happened before, my ears perk up.

I think that we are not being wise when we reject the strange and try to make it normal.

Our world, our whole planet is changing. I am not going to claim I know why. Natural changes, changes due to erosion caused by time, changes due to human activity, regardless to the reason, I think we are foolish to pretend that all is the same.

Almost everyday we hear about something happening in areas where it has never happened before. So much so, that it has to become clear at some point, that something big is going on. Something that we are being told less than the truth about. Real, fake, there is a reason why this is happening. I think if we wait until they tell us the truth, it will be too late to make a difference.

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
Every time I hear people that have lived in areas for long periods of time, say that this is something that has never happened before, my ears perk up.

I think that we are not being wise when we reject the strange and try to make it normal.

Our world, our whole planet is changing. I am not going to claim I know why. Natural changes, changes due to erosion caused by time, changes due to human activity, regardless to the reason, I think we are foolish to pretend that all is the same.

Almost everyday we hear about something happening in areas where it has never happened before. So much so, that it has to become clear at some point, that something big is going on. Something that we are being told less than the truth about. Real, fake, there is a reason why this is happening. I think if we wait until they tell us the truth, it will be too late to make a difference.

Yes, we are hearing the warning more and more often, yet our leaders continue to frack us.

a reply to: Onesmartdog

It appears the City of Melbourne already has an action/adaptation plan in place, but they need to update it with precautions for thunderstorm asthma. Luckily, there are dust/pollen masks able to filter out particles as small as 0.3 microns and larger. But have the authorities determined if there are smaller particles than that created from violent thunderstorms?

www.nccarf.edu.au... on%20Strategy%20and%20Action%20Plan.pdf

Scientists from Tel Aviv University say that their new research shows that for every 1°C of warming there will be roughly a 10% increase in lightning activity.

This would explain the 6 fold increase in emergency situations from thunderstorm asthma and it seems it will only get worse.

www.treehugger.com...

originally posted by: Melbourne_Militia
Death toll attributed to this is currently at 4. Effects from astma can last several days.

My 2 young sons were affected by this. My workmates daughter was rushed to hospital where the line to get to the front counter was 200m long.

My bro in law was also rushed to hospital, he is an astmatic.

My eldest son gets hayfever just like me, my youngest son has never got it before. But this year we have had a very very wet and cool spring and wild grass and flowers have gone nuts growing and flowering. It has been one of the worst years for hayfever allergies on record.

So many older people who have never had hayfever allergies before in their lives have got it this year.

The Thunderstorm "astma" I dont only put down to the strong winds/front that brought in mass amount of pollen and dust but after the storm front passed, it wasn't cool straight away as normal but still very warm, and due to the preceding rain, it was extremely humid for an hour or so afterwards.

I put it down to a combination of factors, pollen/dust/humidity and air pressure post storm.

The sad thing is, our emergency services couldnt handle all the calls.....imagine if a larger, more serious incident occured that resulted in mass "serious" casualties (not saying those that died of astma werent serious, but you know what I mean).

In a more serious event such as a terrorist attack for example, non essential or emergency cases already in hospital will be cleared and sent home.
The state/city and possibly country will go into a state of emergency and anything that isn't life or death(unrelated to tyebattack or event) will not be taken by hospitals. Hospitals will be dealing with the attack/event.

What happened the other week was a surprise and took everyone by surprise.
They are predicting similar conditions today(Sunday), so they'll be better prepared.

But keep in my mind that what happened the other week was not like a terrorist attack or mass casualty incident or event. There was no time to prepare as there wasn't an announced event or something, it just happened and sudd sky thousands of people showed up to hospitals.

I have asthma and was in Melbourne that day and wasn't affected.

a reply to: mortex

Ran across this, and to be honest, it is not something that I want to believe could happen today, but I know better.

1951 Department of Defense begins open air tests using disease-producing bacteria and viruses. Tests last through 1969 and there is concern that people in the surrounding areas have been exposed. 1953 U.S. military releases clouds of zinc cadmium sulfide gas over Winnipeg, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Fort Wayne, the Monocacy River Valley in Maryland, and Leesburg, Virginia. Their intent is to determine how efficiently they could disperse chemical agents. 1953 Joint Army-Navy-CIA experiments are conducted in which tens of thousands of people in New York and San Francisco are exposed to the airborne germs Serratia marcescens and Bacillus glogigii.

A History Of US Secret Human Experimentation

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
a reply to: mortex

Ran across this, and to be honest, it is not something that I want to believe could happen today, but I know better.

In a way, I agree - at the time it was thought these were innocuous bio-marker bacteria. The sort you couldn't catch anything from, but which were about the right size and behavior, and which were easy to trace.

So, yeah, I'd like to think the gubmint would be careful about this sort of thing and do their due diligence up front, but you know they won't. Accidents and incompetence will be with us always.