Peter F.N. Monaghan
Imagine a windstorm that not only destroys its surroundings but pushes people to insanity. Föhns are enigmatic Alpine tempests. They hold a baffling influence over the human body and mind. This is the story of when a föhn struck Kempten, a German town, in 2022. Told from inside the storm, it explores the captivating history, science and myth of this weird phenomena: the madness winds.
A
s the morning light breaks over Kempten, a town in the Alpine foothills of southern Bavaria, sirens sound. First one, and then minutes later, a second. "Expect madness,"
says Klaus Jensen, a visitor at a central Kempten hotel, "a föhn is coming".
With its 70,000 inhabitants, Kempten is the metropole of the Allgäu region. One of the earliest urban settlements in Germany, the skyline reflects a profound cultural and artistic heritage. Churches, museums, statues and parks abound. Sitting astride the Iller River, Kempten is an outdoor paradise. Spring yields verdant hills and forests with panoramic views of the Allgäu Alps. A short drive south, the mountains dwarf the landscape. Their massifs are a vestibule to the Austrian Tyrol. In the colder months, when the ski resorts open, Kempten is a winter wonderland. People here are friendly. They're proud of their town and its offerings.
But at breakfast in the hotel's buffet restaurant, staff murmur and watch the windows. Guests skulk in. Sirens resonate outside. "A föhn is coming," says Jensen again. In his fifties, he has broad shoulders and thick, messy charcoal hair. He's intense and outgoing. While hailing from Hamburg in Germany's flat north, he's an ardent trekker who visits Kempten and its surrounds several times a year. He paces to a window and back. His eyes are red from lack of sleep. "It's close now," he says. He's talking about the wind.
Hot and dry, föhns blast through this area. Gusts can reach top speeds of 180 kph (112 mph). At such speeds, they're akin to hurricanes. In winter, they turn ski resorts into slush. In hotter months, they wilt flora and can cause forest fires. Torrid blusters break windows, tear up fences, and topple farmhouses. Föhns don't just dismantle property. They dismantle people's minds. Hence the sirens. They're from car crashes, says Jensen, "or suicides."
Föhns don't just dismantle property. They dismantle people's minds.
When a föhn hits, hospital attendances rise. Migraines and heart problems spike. Insomnia spreads. People blame föhns for a manifold of pathologies: anxiety, aggression, restlessness, depression, apathy and fatigue. Others enjoy the winds and become charged with energy. They feel spontaneous and creative, stimulated and uninhibited. In Switzerland, defence lawyers argue that, in some clients, föhns precipitate violence, psychosis or instability. In Germany apothecaries sell medicines that claim to ease föhn symptoms.
Some people, like Jensen, know a föhn will come hours or days before. He says he feels it in his body and his head. He's slept poorly the past few nights and attributes that to the föhn. Others are impervious. "It is nonsense," says Lucas Schmid. He's a student at the Kempten Hochschule, a university of applied science. Born in Munich, a ninety-minute drive north-east, Schmid lives in a campus apartment in Kempten. He's never felt anything aside from the heat. To him, föhns are weather and nothing more. He says people's reactions are a collective myth akin to the lunar effect. "My parents claim föhns give them aches and pains," Schmid says, "but they only believe that because their parents believed it too."
The word föhn may come from the Italian favonio, a fertilising spring wind, via the Latin favonius, a warm west wind. It could also have come from the Gothic term fon meaning fire. That term also yielded the modern English word fire, and its German equivalent, feuer. As meanings merged and languages evolved, the term föhn arose to describe a hot south wind. Modern Germans call an electric hairdryer a föhn too. Both the wind and the device produce streams of dry air. But there's no confusion between the wind and the object. The context elicits the meaning.
Föhn storms vary in wind speed, temperature, duration and general intensity. They might last hours or weeks. Mountain climbers are at particular risk. The Eiger's north face, the notorious murder wall, is often wracked by föhns. The climb is already technically challenging and nearly vertical. When föhns plummet down the north face, they hurl scree and ice chunks onto the climbers below. Since 1935 more than sixty people have died trying to make the ascent. Many of them were caught in sudden föhns. No Alpine peak is immune. Even hikes below the mountains can be dangerous.
Despite all this, and possibly in a fit of föhn-induced folly, Jensen says he wants to climb something. He's not an alpinist, though, and suggests a gentle hill west of the town. Outside, the air is arid but the sky is blue. Along a narrow, tarred road leading to the crest, trees shimmy and shake. Strong föhn blasts can snap tree trunks, but Jensen is more concerned with avoiding cyclists. The path is too slender for pedestrians and riders both. "It's not bad yet," he says, "but later it'll get worse."
In front of a three-story farmhouse, a group of people pull down umbrella shades and pack them inside. It is a country inn. Jensen crosses a field near a dirt trail and continues the ascent. As the land flattens near the top of the hill, he sees two wooden benches embedded in cobblestone. He sits and points to the horizon. High in the distance are the Alps. They command the landscape. A broad mass of cloud overlays the mountains. Thick and still, it looks like a giant tsunami of foam surged over the summits then froze in time. Jensen calls this cloud mass "the föhn wall".
The föhn wall surges over the distant mountains peaks, and disappears as the winds head north.
To see the föhn wall is to see the föhn form. These clouds probably blew in from the Mediterranean Sea. As they hit the southern-facing slopes of the Alps, they rise, condense and lose moisture as precipitation. Sunlight heats them more. Tumbling over the mountain peaks, they start to disappear. Disappear, but not dissipate. As invisible air parcels, they roll down the mountains and speed north. At lower altitudes, air pressure compresses them and they become even hotter. Where the föhn wall ends, the föhn winds begin: sweltering pockets of air charging toward the Alpine foothills and toward Kempten.
Föhn wall clouds descend mountain slopes. As they disappear, they form dry and gusty air parcels characteristic of föhn storms.
Different clouds float above. In the morning brightness, they look like stacks of dishes. Even as the wind picks up, these clouds are static. Locals sometimes call them called föhn fish. Adorned with these phenomenal shapes, the sky, beyond the clouds and their snowy tendrils, is a striking cobalt blue. The sun sparkles, and everything is vibrant. Every colour seems more vivid. It is a weird vista.
A striking lenticular föhn cloud hovers over a mountain crest. In the distance, the elongated föhn wall is visible.
first scene describes a föhn approaching Lake Lucerne. The mountains roar, and a rocky spur near the lake "pulls on its hood". The image neatly evokes the föhn wall, the clouds that drape hills and mountains before the winds arrive. Those other strange föhn clouds, the lenticular föhn fish, are also described in literature. Hans Christian Andersen wrote of them in his 1861 story, The Ice-Maiden: "The scattered clouds hung in fantastic shapes … of sea monsters of the prehistoric world, of eagles hovering in the air, of frogs leaping in a marsh." In 1904, German-Swiss writer Herman Hesse contemplated a föhn in his semi-autobiographical novel Peter Camenzind. For Hesse, föhns were elating: "There is nothing stranger and more delicious than the sweet föhn fever that attacks the people of the mountainous regions ... robs them of their sleep and stimulates all the senses with a caress." Polish local narratives of föhns are less exuberant. When the wind starts blowing, as one account says, "it is a sign that someone has hanged himself". Devils dance around the dead man, and a fierce storm swirls and whistles, breaking trees and roofs.
F
öhns have a long literary and artistic history. In 1804, German playwright Friedrich Schiller penned his epic William Tell, a celebration of the titular Swiss folk hero. The
"There is nothing stranger and more delicious than the sweet föhn fever that attacks the people of the mountainous regions ... robs them of their sleep and stimulates all the senses with a caress."
Föhn-type winds are not singular to Europe. They're common to New Zealand, where they're called Nor'westers. In North America, over the Canadian Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains nearby, they're called Chinooks. In northern California, they're called Diablos. In southern California, Santa Anas. In her 1968 essay collection Slouching Toward Bethlehem, American author Joan Didion wrote of the tension and unnatural stillness preceding a Santa Ana. Her account portends the storm's approach: "I have neither heard nor read that a Santa Ana is due, but I know it, and almost everyone I have seen today knows it too. We know it because we feel it. The baby frets. The maid sulks." Föhns too are believed to signal their arrival. As Herman Hesse wrote in Peter Camenzind: "When a föhn is near, men and women, mountains, deer and cattle feel it many hours ahead." Jensen is convinced he predicted today's föhn and says he's predicted others. But Lucas Schmid, the university student, derides the notion. For him, the idea that people can augur a föhn storm is absurd. Such people, Schmid says, have overactive imaginations: "It is fanciful. I cannot take it seriously."
This scepticism aside, a huge number of Germans are sure that their health is linked to the weather. The German Meteorological Service (DWD) is the government agency responsible for atmospheric observations, forecasts and research. Their research shows fifty per cent of Germans believe the weather influences their health. The DWD describes this half of the population as weather-sensitive.
The DWD also researches bioweather and biometeorology. Bioweather, sometimes called organic weather, explores how weather patterns affect human health. Biometeorology explores the connections between weather and all living organisms. The DWD offers an online bioweather forecast to aid weather-sensitive people. Central to the forecast is a map that predicts how the weather in various parts of Germany will influence residents' health. According to the DWD, four in five Germans find the bioweather forecast helpful. It is republished nationwide, appearing in tabloids and newspapers of record alike.
The DWD Bioweather map, published twice daily, shows the predicted health impact of the weather in delineated areas of Germany: blue for positive, green for neutral, yellow for mild danger, and red for high danger to weather-sensitive residents.
Source: German Metereological Service (DWD)
Another digital resource, Menschenswetter, publishes similar maps online. Working with the DWD, they base their forecasts on data the DWD provides. The website has a lengthy list of physical and mental conditions that the weather can supposedly influence. These include mood, general psychological ailments, and "fluctuations in motivation and performance". An example forecast for Berlin on a warm and cloudy day says that "increasing clouds reduce direct solar radiation" and so will "reduce general mood". A person experiencing these weather conditions "will feel unbalanced, unfocused and less productive". Inability to concentrate will decrease mental resilience. As a consequence, the "tendency to react irritably to fellow humans increases."
The Menschenswetter map predicts how the weather will impact people who are weather-sensitive, both physically and psychologically. The lower on the scale, the worse the weather's influence will be. In Berlin, where conditions are cloudy and warm, the weather will cause irritability, bad mood and lack of concentration.
Source: Menchenswetter.de
When the weather is rainy and the sky is dense with clouds, the Menschenswetter site says, "not a single ray of sunshine brightens the mood". If such weather lasts long enough, it can cause cabin fever. Or, according to the website, "the feeling of being locked in your own four walls" can cause a "depressive mood" to develop. Every day of rain "means a day without fresh air, light and exercise," so mood and general well-being suffer. The DWD uses a similarly simple cause-and-effect example to demonstrate how weather sensitivity works. Cold weather causes surface blood vessels to constrict and blood pressure to rise. For people with heart problems, elevated blood pressure can increase the risk of heart attack.
Weather sensitivity isn't a disorder in its own right, the DWD says. Instead, the term describes existing conditions aggravated by the weather. A person with a circulatory disease might be weather-sensitive, as might a person with asthma or depression.
To the Menschenswetter service, to the DWD and to many other European weather agencies, weather-sensitivity is scientifically-sound. It is easily explainable, but also backed by research. Many - perhaps most - Germans believe the same. The notion isn't limited to Germany. Bioweather forecasts are published in Switzerland, Austria, Poland and Czechia. In the English-speaking world the notion of weather-sensitivity is reflected in expressions like 'under the weather' and 'evil winds'. Weather pains - existing aches or discomforts provoked by the weather - are widely accepted as real. The term meteoropathy is sometimes used to give the premise a more scientific imprimatur.
not? Can weather alter the mind?
Methodical attempts to answer these questions first appeared in the early 19th century. A Swiss naturalist, Dr Lusser, observed the föhn-afflicted and recorded their symptoms. In an 1820 letter, he described symptoms common today and common in the historical and artistic literature: headaches, insomnia, apathy, weariness and insomnia. A German scientist, Willy Hellpach, coined the term föhnkrankeit (föhn sickness or föhn illness) in a 1925 publication. Hellpach endured one of the longest föhns on record while working at a psychiatric hospital during the First World War. Beyond headaches, malaise and exhaustion, Hellpach said föhns caused violent tempers and mood swings. In the late 1940s, Hellmut Berg, head of the Institute of Meteorology at the University of Cologne, began a series of seminal investigations into föhn sickness. In a 1950 book collating his work, he added symptoms like muscular convulsions and heart palpitations to the list of föhn-induced ailments. He observed how föhn sickness struck people outside and people indoors with the same frequency and severity. Symptoms emerged, wrote Berg, before the wind gusts began. He even advised surgeons to avoid operating during föhns. The following years saw a surge of studies and publications about föhn sickness. Yet physiological explanations remained elusive. As interest in föhn illness waned in the 1970s, research funding disappeared.
But recently there has been something of a resurgence in föhn biometeorology. Newer studies have used fresh approaches, with enlightening results.
One such work examined patients in Swiss psychiatric hospitals. Most of the patients had anxiety disorders, or disorders aggravated by stress. Their conditions became worse before föhn spells, and improved once the winds had passed. By showing increased signs of distress before any apparent changes in the weather, they had unknowingly predicted föhns. So if patients with anxiety-related disorders can predict a föhn's approach, and the winds worsen their symptoms, föhns might be anxiogenic: they might cause or intensify anxiety. If that's true, föhns could act as nervous system stimulants, at least in some people. This idea links weather sensitivity and föhn sensitivity. It shows that some mental illnesses can be intensified by the weather, just like some physical illnesses.
An interesting hypothesis for föhn sickness builds on that idea. It offers an appealing physiological explanation for some of the mental and physical symptoms. Normal air, the researchers say, carries either no charge, or, a slight negative charge. Föhn air carries a net positive charge. The researchers exposed human test subjects to positively-charged air. Some of these volunteers experienced symptoms akin to föhn sickness: insomnia, headaches, anxiety, irritability, tension and mood swings. Symptomatic test subjects had higher than normal levels of serotonin. Asymptomatic test subjects did not. Drugs that block serotonin improved the symptoms. Serotonin is a type of neurochemical, a substance integral to nervous system function. It regulates sleep, memory, mood and other critical physical and mental processes. With the overlap between symptoms caused by excess serotonin, and those seen in föhn sickness, serotonin, induced by positively charged air, became a tantalising biochemical culprit for föhn disease. This serotonin hypothesis, as it is sometimes called, seems compelling.
B
ut what about föhn sensitivity and föhn sickness? Do föhn winds really cause symptoms in humans? How ? Why are some people sensitive to föhns and others
.png)
As föhns move down the leeward Alpine slopes, chemical reactions, moisture loss as precipitation, and other effects make the resulting winds positively-charged. Positively-charged air might increase serotonin levels in humans, and so produce föhn sickness. (ADD: foehn wall disappears. Remove the text. Just say "foehn parcels are composed of positive charges, etc".
However, it is confused by a number of factors, and leaves many questions unanswered. Why don't all people experience a syndrome similar to föhn sickness when they're exposed to positively-charged air ? Why are some people föhn sensitive, and others unaffected ? Advocates of the serotonin hypothesis offer, as answers to those questions, the notion that föhn-sensitive people are more susceptible to changes in the electrical composition of the air. They're also more susceptible to brain chemistry changes, and, to use the research terminology, have less resilient nervous systems.
It may be that an adaptive mechanism distinguishes the föhn-sensitive from the unaffected. Hellmut Berg observed in the 1950s that people who moved to Bavaria were more likely to experience föhn sickness, and to have stronger symptoms. People born in Bavaria had fewer and milder symptoms or sometimes none at all. So, although not everyone from Bavaria is immune to föhn sickness, some might acclimatise to föhns. Herman Hesse wrote that he dreaded föhn storms as a boy, but as he grew older, he came to like them. Adaption to föhn weather might explain why Munich-born Lucas Schmid has not suffered föhn illness, but Paul Jensen, a north German, has. But if föhn adaption occurs, there's nothing that proves it. There's nothing to discount it either. Aside from Berg's observations, and a few others, there's nothing more in the literature. It's a supposition.
The serotonin hypothesis is similarly slippery. Despite offering some physical insights into föhn sickness, it is far from definitive. It may even be questionable, since there's an unanswered paradox that strikes at it's heart: people with depression and anxiety are often treated with drugs that raise serotonin levels. Nor does it answer another question: why do some föhn-sensitives become manic during föhn storms, while others experience feel pain, lethargy and depression ? What accounts for these disparate observations ? The hypothesis offers no answers here. So, it has some utility, but only as a starting point for further research.
Weather systems are complex. So is the human body. Studying both demands the measurement of a vast number of variables. Serotonin is complex and rarely acts alone. Other neurochemicals could be involved. As could other weather features. Föhn winds are withering and can be uncomfortable. General concerns about avalanches, fires and property damage could add to the discomfort. Features beyond serotonin, and electrical air changes, almost certainly contribute to föhn sickness too. People with physical conditions, like heart disease, might be affected by föhn heat. There may be subsets of föhn sickness, with different mental and physical symptoms and different sensitivity levels. Age, genetics, and various physiological factors could also determine if a person is föhn sensitive. Föhns can differ in temperature, air pressure, and countless other ways. Identifying all these parameters is a monumental task, let alone measuring how they might interact. It is beyond the capacity of modern research and will probably remain so.
Maybe, as Lucas Schmid alluded, there's something of a mass hypnosis about föhns. The long tradition of the wind might propagate its effects. Stories of old might create disturbances anew. Some meteorologists have criticised the idea of bioweather and condemned bioweather research as unnecessary, distorted or unprovable. As beyond the domain of serious science. As pseudoscience. Even the various bioweather maps rely on subjective interpretations of health. They cannot say with quantifiable certainty if a person will experience symptoms or to what degree. In many ways, they are more prophesy than prediction.
Maybe there's something of a mass hypnosis about föhns. The long tradition of the wind might propagate its effects. Stories of old might create disturbances anew.
Jensen is a self-described föhn sensitive. He's sure he can anticipate them. He says föhns convert his usual energy into angst and unease. But, he says, "I cannot speak for everybody else." Up on the hill overlooking Kempten, he studies the sky and ponders aloud. Perhaps, says Jensen, "the expectation of chaos drives the anxiety, and the anxiety causes the trouble." Or föhns might convert existing anxieties into outright distress. It is hard to know why föhns cause problems, says Jensen, "but they do."
W
hen the first very strong gusts arrive, Jensen heads back to town. He stays inside for the rest of the day. As morning turns to afternoon, the föhn rises, hissing and
howling. Windows quiver and rattle. Searing gusts sweep grit into the air, bend trees, and churn the waters of the Iller. Waves clash against the riverbanks. The late afternoon sky becomes a spectral patchwork of orange and grey.
As dusk approaches, strong föhn gusts are churn the Iller waters, and turn the sky into a stunning, colourful mosaic.
Ultimately though, the föhn's bark proves worse than its bite. It stays for the day and is gone by morning. People gathering for breakfast at the hotel in Kempten look relieved. They chat and share stories they've heard. Gusts were strongest to the south, in Austria and Switzerland. In Kempten and the Allgäu region, the föhn was mild but not without consequences. Wind damaged some property. A man drove into a parked truck. A teenager lost control and hit a tree but was unhurt. A delivery driver struck a curb and caused some traffic delays. At the country inn on the hill west of Kempen, employees are sanguine. Föhns come and go, says a young woman at the counter inside. "For now," she says, "they've gone." Umbrellas and furniture are back out on the lawn. Groups of patrons sit, drinking, eating, and enjoying the scenery, looking out over the town and the Alps beyond.
A
week after the föhn, Jensen packs and prepares to head south for a hike. As he zips up his bag, he offers his enigmatic conclusion about föhn sickness: "I think some
people become crazy because they want to," he says, "and others because they must."
Föhn winds are baffling. They're mercurial and strange. Meteorologists still argue about how they form. Medical science might never prove föhn sickness. Many will continue to believe in it, and others will continue to deny it. It's a paradox. It's real, exaggerated and contrived, depending on the person. Some despise it, others ignore it, some revel in it, and some question it.
But there's also a comic take. Karl Valentin was a Weimar-era comedian, actor and singer, a sort of German WC Fields. Born in Bavaria, his joke about föhn sickness is also a keen summary: "I always feel the föhn," he said, "even when it's not there."
-
-
One more Grammarly, do fixes then 1 more re-read, no more editing. No more shifting the things 80px apart etc. Leave it. Edit the picture to remove the negative electric charge words. Then done. 2h max.