The phenomenon became impossible to ignore after the catastrophic Melbourne epidemic thunderstorm asthma event of November 2016, when a combination of high grass-pollen counts and a particular kind of spring storm triggered a mass asthma outbreak that killed ten people and sent thousands to hospital within a matter of hours.
That event fundamentally changed how seriously Victorians, and health authorities, treat the risk each spring.
The Victorian Department of Health now issues a seasonal epidemic thunderstorm asthma forecast, rating the risk by region across the state through the high-risk pollen season, and search interest in “asthma forecast” tends to track closely with days rated high or extreme risk, suggesting people are genuinely checking before deciding whether to stay indoors.
Search interest in “asthma symptoms” and “asthma preventer” often rises alongside the more specific thunderstorm asthma searches, particularly among people who don't otherwise think of themselves as asthmatic, thunderstorm asthma can affect people with untreated hay fever who have never had an asthma diagnosis, which is part of what makes the forecast system so important.
For a health risk this specific to Victoria's geography and climate, the recurring, predictable nature of the search spike each spring is itself a useful public health signal.
Health authorities recommend that anyone with hay fever or grass pollen allergies speak to a pharmacist or GP about a preventer before the high-risk season begins, rather than waiting for a forecast warning, a message that search interest in “asthma preventer” each spring suggests is gradually getting through, even if slowly.
Regional Victoria, with its extensive grasslands and cropping country, generates some of the highest-risk conditions in the state during the pollen season, giving country communities every reason to treat the annual search spike as a genuinely useful, practical prompt rather than background noise.
This article was produced as part of a Google Trends licensing initiative. It uses Google Trends data to explore search interest in thunderstorm asthma search trends.
Google Trends data is aggregated and anonymous. Search interest is measured on a relative scale and does not represent total search volume.
This content is part of a paid partnership with Google to promote Google Trends.
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