The number of older Americans who go to a hospital emergency room for breathing difficulties related to asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) increases on the day before a major thunderstorm, according to a study published online recently in JAMA Internal Medicine . Each year, on average, about 3,700 visits to hospital emergency rooms for respiratory problems by people aged 65 and older can be attributed to thunderstorms, the study estimates. That’s not a trivial number. And it’s likely to grow. As the study’s authors point out, global warming is expected to increase the number of severe thunderstorms in the United States in the coming years. This is not the first evidence of the phenomenon that has been dubbed “thunderstorm asthma.” Several places — most notably, Melbourne, Australia, in 2016 — have reported rare outbreaks of asthma in the immediate aftermath of a thunderstorm. The outbreaks are sometimes so large that they’ve overwhelmed the local health car
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