Many people associate Calgary’s warm chinook winds with the onset of headaches, but experts say the science behind the correlation remains unclear.
“There isn’t as much as you would expect, that we know for sure, about pressure and headaches,” said pediatric neurologist Dr. Serena Orr, an associate professor at the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine.
The existence of chinook headaches isn’t just anecdotal: a 2000 study published in the medical journal Neurology established that chinooks increase the likelihood of migraines in some people.
The question remains: why?
Orr, who specializes in headaches, said it most likely has to do with altitude and barometric pressure, which is the force from the atmosphere’s weight.
“Higher altitude locations have lower barometric pressure,” said Orr. “And in areas at higher altitude there seems to be more prevalence of migraine disease.”
Located more than 1,040 metres above sea level, Calgary is considered a high-altitude location. In fact, it’s at the highest elevation of any major city in Canada.
But the link between altitude and the likelihood of migraines hasn’t been proven, said Orr.
Studies suggest rodents can feel pain and stress from their inner ear systems due to decreases in barometric pressure, but as Orr pointed out, “that hasn’t really been worked out in humans.”
Orr was among the researchers behind a November 2025 study on the relationship between chinooks and migraines in youth. That study was not able to find a link between the two.
Many longtime Calgarians might see a chinook arch and expect a headache or migraine to follow. But as CBCโs Jo Horwood reports, despite the widespread acceptance that changing pressure can cause migraines, one local expert says the actual connection is under-researched and not fully understood.
“We expected to see a strong relationship based on older adult studies amongst adults with migraine, where they did find a strong relationship between chinook days and attacks,” she said. “We didn’t see that in kids, so that was really unexpected, and we are not sure why.”
Orr said more research is needed to understand why this latest study’s results differed so significantly from previous findings proving a connection between chinooks and headaches.
“It may be how we looked at the data. Maybe just saying ‘chinook or not chinook’ is not enough. Maybe you need to look at the individual weather parameters,” she said.
Age could also be a factor. The brain might react differently to the weather as it ages, Orr suggested.
Japan’s oroshi
Calgary researchers aren’t the only ones interested in the relationship between headaches and barometric pressure.
In Japan, Dr. Toshiyuki Hikita practises medicine in the Kantล Plain’s Gunma Prefecture, north of Tokyo.
There, oroshi blow down from the slope of Mount Akagi. Unlike the Rocky Mountain range’s chinooks, Japanese oroshi are classified as katabatic winds, meaning they’re cool rather than warm.
In an email to CBC News, Hikita said Japanese researchers haven’t found a link between oroshi and headaches.
“Very strong winds blow, but I don’t feel that this necessarily means that headaches among headache patients are increasing,” he said.
Another weather event is of interest when it comes to migraines: typhoons, which typically hit Japan between May and October.
“If a typhoon occurs 1,000 kilometres away from Gunma Prefecture, headache patients will experience migraines even if the weather in Gunma is sunny,” Hikita said.
Like chinooks, typhoons are associated with drops in barometric pressure.
“In my personal experience, I get migraines when a low pressure system like a typhoon approaches,” Hikita said.
He said other weather factors, like higher humidity and rainfall, were also associated with more headaches.
“In other words, both chinook and oroshi are strong winds that blow from the mountains, but the difference is that chinook causes migraines under special conditions, while oroshi does not,” Hikita said.
The science behind those warm winter winds and beautiful skyscapes.
Orr is planning to conduct another study on chinooks and headaches in the near future, with more of a focus on individual weather parameters, such as changes in barometric pressure.
“We need more basic science studies on animals and humans, like imaging studies and different biological studies, to try to understand why,” she said.
“I really think the weather piece might help us understand migraine biology better, because it’s not 100 per cent worked out either.”
