As Michael Fish will no doubt tell you – having failed to warn the nation of an impending hurricane - you can’t always be totally accurate when predicting the weather.
But Shakira Robson can always tell when a downpour is on its way, even without any of the technology available to those at the Met Office. She just has to use her head – because before the heavens open, with clockwork regularity, she suffers a migraine.
The 29-year-old mother of three, who has been dubbed the weather vane woman by her friends, can even tell how heavy the rainfall will be by the intensity of her headache. Her incredible knack began just after the birth of her four-yearold son.
Forecaster: Shakira Robson suffers a migraine before rain or a storm
‘I would have about four to five per week to begin with,’ she said. ‘I started noticing that I could feel an aura descend on me just before it would rain.
‘It was a joke at first. I would text my friends and warn them to take an umbrella out with them as I was getting a migraine – but when it was always correct I thought I would monitor it.
‘I did a chart for weeks and wrote down when I was getting a migraine and when it rained. I was spot on.
‘Now, I’m like a human barometer. I can tell when it’s going to rain and how long it will rain.
‘If it’s torrential rain or a storm the pain is much more intense and the migraine can last for over 12 hours.’
Half of migraine sufferers believe their headaches are triggered by changes in temperature or air pressure. But while scientists acknowledge the link, they are baffled as to why it is the case.
Last year a U.S. study of 7,000 patients found that the number going to hospital with severe headaches rose 7.5 per cent for every 5c temperature increase.
Two or three days of a low pressure system also triggered more headaches. Some scientists think a fall in pressure lowers levels of oxygen in the blood, causing blood vessels to dilate and triggering a headache.
Others have speculated it affects fluid protecting the brain inside the skull, increasing pressure.
At times Miss Robson, a businesswoman from Newcastle, has had to contend with four or five migraines a day. Doctors told her to take normal painkillers, but the attacks were getting worse and tearing her home life apart.
‘My career was suffering because I was constantly taking time off work and my relationship was breaking down because I was ill so much,’ she added. ‘Then one day I tried to get out of my friend’s car to pick my son up from school and realised I couldn’t move. The migraine was so bad it had paralysed my body.
‘I was so scared, I thought I’d had a stroke. My friend got my son for me and took me to the doctors where I was taken straight to hospital.’
She had suffered a hemiplegic migraine, a kind so strong that she was paralysed down her whole left side for three days.
After an MRI scan she was prescribed heavy pain relief in the form of a self-administered injection in her thigh every time she felt a migraine coming on.
It stopped the headaches, but left her paralysed again for 40 minutes each time.
She said: ‘When I’d injected myself I would be unable to walk or speak. After about five months I became immune to it.’
Now she takes up to nine tablets a day and has had to change her diet to avoid processed foods and alcohol.
‘My life has changed drastically because of the migraines,’ she said. ‘The kids have had to learn that when mummy’s ill they have to be quiet. It’s not fair on them. I’m seeing a specialist now and I pray things will get better.'
Unpredictable: Former BBC weatherman Michael Fish (pictured in 2001) failed to warn viewers of an approaching hurricane
