Certain weather conditions indeed appear to increase the risk of migraine, but people still tend to overestimate weather’s influence on their headache, new research shows.

“We showed that patients are susceptible to multiple weather variables and that more patients thought weather was a trigger than was the case,” write the researchers, led by Dr. Patricia B. Prince of the Children’s Hospital in Boston.

This is not the first study to investigate weather’s effect on headache, but most have shown conflicting results. For instance, one investigation found that people tended to get more headaches on days with low barometric pressure, and stronger headaches on days with many hours of snow-reflected sunlight.

Another study, in contrast, found that a variety of weather conditions, including fog, sunshine, changing pressure and temperature, had no bearing on headache risks.

During the current investigation, Prince’s team asked 77 adults suffering from migraines to report whether they thought their headaches were influenced by weather, then to record the intensity of their headaches every day for between 2 and 24 months. The researchers also recorded weather conditions from three reporting stations close to where participants lived.

Reporting in the journal Headache, the investigators found that around one-third of people were sensitive to temperature and humidity, and around 14 percent experienced headaches in response to changing weather patterns. Another 13 percent were sensitive to barometric pressure changes.

Overall, approximately 50 percent of people experienced headaches in response to some weather-related factor. However, more than 62 percent of people said they believed their headaches were sensitive to weather-related changes, a significantly higher number than actually were.

The most common conditions people believed caused their migraines included rain, bright sunshine, high humidity and hot temperatures.

The researchers conclude: “If patients and their physicians pay close attention to personal patterns in weather sensitivity, it may be possible to prevent the onset of headache in many situations, and in others prepare to be armed to initiate treatment when headache begins.”

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SOURCE: Headache, June 2004.