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Can a Change in the Weather Alter Your Health?

Britain’s climate – a combination of extreme changeability and generally mild conditions – probably explains why our houses are among the most poorly-insulated and heated in Europe. Really cold winters here are rare, but they do happen occasionally – and then we suffer.

And this in turn accounts for the fact that more people die in cold winters here than anywhere else on the Continent. On the other hand, heat can be a killer – more than 30,000, mostly elderly, people died in the great European heatwave of 2003.

However, what seems to have the greatest impact on health and mental well-being is not a specific temperature, pressure or wind-speed level, but sudden and extreme changes in weather – changes which, in many people, can trigger anything from mild psychological disquiet to actual illness.

A few winters ago, I visited the little Russian settlement of Oymjakon, bang in the middle of the so-called Pole of Cold, a remote region of eastern Siberia where air temperatures fall to the lowest seen on Earth outside Antarctica.

Sudden changes in temperature – even if towards beautiful sunshine – can trigger psychological unrest

It was a lovely day – brilliant sunshine, blue skies, no wind at all. It was also about 63C below zero – a near-record even in this famously frigid place.

Minus 63C is not to be trifled with, but we noticed that everyone seemed cheerful with children, wrapped up warm in furs, playing happily in the snow with their equally unconcerned dogs.

One inhabitant said that, in fact, the most difficult times of year are when the weather changes rapidly, the often almost-instantaneous transition from summer to winter in November when temperatures could plummet 50C or 60C in less than a week.