‘Thunderstorm asthma’ kills 2 as freak weather conditions wreak havoc

[Steve Miller]

A rare weather phenomenon known as "thunderstorm asthma" reportedly caused two deaths and crippled emergency services in Melbourne, Australia after extreme winds whipped high levels of pollen into the air causing widespread respiratory issues.
Ambulance Victoria received 1800 calls over a five-hour period on Monday, the equivalent of “a normal day's case flow for the entire state,” Mick Stephenson from the service told 3AW. Hospitals were at capacity with emergency services experiencing an unprecedented number of people with breathing problems.

Read more: https://www.rt.com/viral/367793-thunderstorm-asthma-kills-2/

 

[Tim Paitz]

The hell? That's a real thing? :O

 

[JeremyS]

Here's another story that now says 3 people died. Here is the description of what causes it:
"When you have a perfect storm coming together (of) a very high pollen day, high humidity, and a thunderstorm, the grains of rye grass absorb water with the humidity and they break up into thousands of pieces,” Ould said.

“Normally with rye grass the pollen would be trapped by nose hairs. When it breaks up it goes straight to the lungs.”

The pollen irritates the lungs’ bronchial tubes, causing them to become inflamed and filled with mucus and making it hard for people to breathe."

http://wgntv.com/2016/11/23/thunderstorm-asthma-kills-3-in-australia/

 

[rdale]

Dr Shepherd (former AMS President) has this study on asthma occurring in Atlanta after thunderstorms from 2008 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3766719/