Headache ahead? A change in the weather can trigger severe headache, a new study says.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, CA—Migraine sufferers often claim there’s a connection between weather and their pain, and a new study seems to agree. Changes in weather, specifically a spike in temperature, can bring on severe headaches, according to research published in the journal Neurology.

THE DETAILS: Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston set out to see if they could verify the “clinical folklore” of a relationship between weather and headaches. They looked at data from 7,000 patients who went to the emergency room for headache or migraine between 2000 and 2007, and compared levels of temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, and certain types of pollution during the three days leading up to the hospital visits. Risk of ER-reported headache was 7.5 percent higher for every 9 degrees Fahrenheit that the temperature higher, on a given day, than other days that month. “The increased risk occurred in both winter and summer, so there’s no threshold,” explains lead author Kenneth Mukamal, MD, MPH, a physician of general medicine and primary care at BIDMC and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. In other words, on a day when the temperature jumps, headache risk goes up, whether in June or January. Falling barometric pressure was also associated with higher risk of severe headache, but to a lesser extent than temperature. Future studies are in the works to help explain why this phenomenon occurs, and how the looming threat of global climate change may affect it.

WHAT IT MEANS: Migraines strike nearly 20 percent of women and 6 percent of men in this country, and they are no fun. The debilitating headaches can be triggered by certain foods, alcohol, stress, and hormones, and now, apparently, weather.

Here’s how you can prevent a bad headache or migraine, or deal with it if one comes along. Pay special attention to these strategies on days when there’s a temperature spike.