This webinar was recorded on April 5, 2023
Weather Trends CEO Captain Bill Kirk will discuss how a major shift in climate cycles will bring a very wet pattern to the U.S. throughout 2023 which can help to reduce allergy & asthma suffering. But, by the Fall – Winter it will likely be the coldest in a decade exacerbating folks who suffer from cold and dry weather asthma triggers.
Speaker
- Dr. Bill Kirk
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Thanks for joining us. We are seeing our numbers go up as people are joining. Just give us a few more seconds as people come in and we will go ahead and start the webinar. Hello, everyone, we are waiting for people to come in but we will go ahead and start the webinar as people are logging on. Good afternoon and Thank you for joining us today. We have a few housekeeping items before we start today’s program. I am Andrea Jensen, the education specialist for allergy and asthma network. All participants will be on mute for the webinar. We will record today’s webinar and this will be posted on our website within a few days. You can find this and any of our recorded webinars on our website. Scroll to the bottom of the page to find our recorded webinars and any upcoming webinars. The webinar will be about one hour and we will have time for questions. It might go a little bit short of depending on questions. We will take those questions at the end of the webinar, but if you have a burning question, you can put it in right now on the Q&A on the bottom left-hand side of your screen at any time. We have someone monitoring the chat, if you have questions or need help. We will get to as many questions as we can, before we conclude today’s webinar. We do not offer CEU’s for this particular webinar but you will receive an e-mail a few days after the webinar with resources about climate cycles and a link to download your certificate of attendance. Today we will discuss how a major shift in climate cycles will bring a very wet pattern to the U.S. throughout 2023, which can help to reduce allergy and asthma suffering. But by the Fall/Winter, it will likely be the coldest in a decade, exacerbating folks who suffer from cold and dry weather, asthma triggers. Allergy and asthma network is a grassroots organization that was started over 35 years ago. By a mom who knew that other mothers like her needed resources and support. Our mission is to end deaths and suffering due to allergies, asthma, and related conditions to outreach, education, advocacy, and research. Today it is my pleasure to introduce our speaker, Captain Bill Kirk. The CEO of Weather Trends International, with analytics for Fortune 500 companies. Weather Trends uses a statistical modeling algorithm fueled by 125 plus years of weather data and 24 climate cycles that cover every square mile of the earth, rather than physics-based meteorology. Weather Trends’ year ahead forecast is typically 80% to 87% accurate with less error than to range — two range forecasts. 85% of the time on temperatures and 86% precipitation over the last 15 years. Bill received a bachelor’s degree in meteorology and physics from Rutgers University and received the Air Force distinguished graduate award from New Jersey Governor Tom Kean, before entering the U.S. Air Force. Bill held a top-secret SCI Security clearance and received awards for his support in Desert Storm. While in the U.S. Air Force, Bill was involved with NASA’s Space shuttle Columbia operation just cause in Panama. The British Royal knighting of Sotrming Norman, and handling of a satellite data system. He is a real bill Kirk. He has been featured on CNBC and ABC 2020. He’s an investor and co- inventor of three OK patents and has published research and hundreds of Wall Street equity reports. Under Bill’s leadership, Weather Trends has received National and international awards including Forbes’ fifth top company in America. Bill and Weather Trends are committed to doing business with a greater purpose. Weather Trends uses the term “Business as mission” to describe the company’s commitment to partnering with the committee and organizations. Bill wants Weather Trends to be a blessing to not only their clients, but the communities they serve. Thank you for being with us today, Captain Kirk. We are lucky to have you as we discussed claimant cycles and changes and how they can — claimant cycles and changes and how they can impact allergy and asthma.
Dr. Kirk: I know Andrea has got snow in her Utah mountains and Chris is headed for tornadoes in Tennessee. We will go probably about 20-25 minutes with some slides and hopefully there will be a little time for questions here. A come out of Rutgers — Let’s talk Rutgers and physics and climate cycles. That’s what we are doing today. Apologize you cannot see my face. Our studio here is a cool — we call it spaceship here in Pennsylvania. A cool office here. We have been in the allergy space for at least 22 years. Predicting allergy — we looked at point-of-sale data over the counter. What we found is when it is warm and dry in the spring, pollen is naturally there all the time. It’s not a question of whether you will have pollen, but how long in the year. What washes it out? Rain, snow, wind. If it is warm and dry, although pollen suspended in the air — all the pollen suspended in the air will make you exposed to it and you will have more suffering. That’s how we are able to predict allergy seasons. It is about to get real here next week. Some in the space, Johnson & Johnson, Bayer. Very blessed to work with you guys. We would like to help people rather than big corporations [INDISCERNIBLE] — supposed to be very fast. Meteorology physics 101 is simple. This was one drop, one drop in the ocean, this would be easy fluid dynamics. The reality and meteorology is you have millions and millions of interactions of storms, thunderstorms, outflow boundaries, hurricanes, tornadoes. All of that is a changing environment around us. One big hurricane can potentially change the world for potentially weeks. You have to worry all the way up to 80,000 feet. It is crazy math. That is what Meteorology 101 tries to do. That is why the forecast is changing everyday. There’s new physics and data every day, multiple times a day. This is good for a week or two at the very best. Not for a year ahead. At the Air Force Base, we started thinking, how can we do long-term weather? Statistic climate cycles? If it is a really hot March, what happens the next year? We go back and look at 150 plus years of data and there’s a 94% chance it is snowing, 86% chance it is really cold. Those are pretty strong odds. We do these statistics by day, by mile, 32 million locations. Trillions of calculations for the forecast. These are claimant cycles — climate cycles. We have heard about La Niña. We are in a three year La Niña cycle. It’s only happened twice in 157 years. That we have been in a pattern like this. I will not be giving away the top-secret algorithm here. But if you have ever seen a wave cycle, kind of like a sin curve, our process is like a sloppy Sin curve. We use that kind of math if you will to predict the weather a year ahead. The next thing is — if you can get the weather right, you can also predict outcomes. Our technology has well over 10,000 seasonal categories, whether it is allergy medication, asthma medications, you name it, we probably have analyzed it. Why you by what you buy. — buy what you buy. Every spring, there’s about a 1% move in allergy medication. 20% increase in allergy sufferers. That is a pretty sizable move. Air conditioners, A 15% move. There’s a downside here. Obviously if it is colder weather, you will have less allergy medication sales. We have seen that — We have analyzed those sales. This is not what you would expect to see. This is a year ahead forecast. We do this for millions of retail geographies, CBS, Walgreens, we predict their sales down to their stores, warehouses. This allows them to be proactive. I’ve had asthma in the past, the allergies commando. But that does not mean — come and go. But that does not mean I cannot have a flareup in some weeks. The on top of your medication — Be on top of your medication, just because it did not impact you last year. Here is where we get into the regression analysis here. When you are warmer and drier, there’s a higher incidence of asthma and allergy sales. Colder and wetter, there’s a lower incidence of allergy sales. That correlation is about 72%. A very strong cause and effect relationship. It makes sense. Paul and, if washed out — Pollen, if washed out with rain, you are not going to be exposed to as much pollen. If it is in the air for weeks, you’re going to be suffering immensely. We cross correlated allergy and asthma prescriptions. Going across the country — forget how many years of data that was. 10 plus years of data. We found a strong correlation between allergy and asthma sales and the people who suffered from allergy, if you are a climate suffer from asthma, you are both suffering at the same time. God forbid you suffer from allergies and asthma. The impact is compounded. The next thing we do is flu, it is more viral. It has nothing to do with pollen . It is also creditable — It is also a predictable weather event. If you pay attention here, this past year, we had a very fast start to flu season. Something we have not seen since 2009. 13 years ago. What happened here if you look at the chart was we had to hold his conditions in the southeast, August, September, October, in 21 years. It was a frigid epic start to the cold weather in the southeast. What also happened was it got very dry. As you get very cold and dry, we do two things — you turn the heat on in your house, that is the death sentence of, you are going to get very low humidity in your home. If you turn on your heat in your house, the humidity in your house can be down to 8%. That is nonexistent moisture in your home. There was a recent study that showed when it is cold and dry for sure outside with low humidity, the flu virus and COVID virus or really any virus, even pollen maintains its structure. COVID and flu can have a spiky protein — I am not a doctor obviously but has these spikes on it. They maintain their shape. They are more susceptible to be able to plant themselves in your eyes, your throat, mucous membranes. When it is hot and humid, Those viruses may not be able to attach to you and make you sick as easily. Flu always starts on the southeast. It is a demographic issue. May be less access to health care in the South. Mississippi, Alabama, New Orleans is where it starts. It always tends to start in that area. Kids go back to school very early in the South. You’ve got the cold weather, your nose dries out, it gets cold. A cold nose is a very bad thing. That can lead to you getting sick very quickly, because of how the virus can spread more easily. In 2021, the season was much later. A peak in the October and November timeframe. We are already showing our year had forecast. — year ahead forecast. We do this for 32 million spots. This is a rolling year ahead forecast. Every week hear you see something that was made a year prior. The dotted line is actual. It is never going to be perfect. If it was hot, it was hot, if it was wet, it was wet, it was dry, it was dry. The error between these forecasts [INDISCERNIBLE] — 80% of the population is living your oceans. — living near oceans. There’s a lot of validity to predicting things. NOAA, on March 31, issued their April forecast. One day before the month was going to happen, they issued their April forecast. The blue line is a year ahead forecast for April. Even though we are a year in advance of NOAA, we are outperforming them about 85% of the time over the last 15-16 years. Anything above that zero line is considered their methodology — apples to apples, the only thing that is different as we are using what we said a year ago versus what they said. 86% outperforming NOAA for the year ahead forecast. If you want to try to predict an outcome, we want to tell you how bad the allergy season is gonna be the next two weeks, really bad. You want to get the weather right and get these outcomes right. If you look at the pictorial Pacific — equatorial Pacific, it is very important. All the oceans are important in terms of protecting our weather. It will ultimately have an impact on stream. What’s happened the last three years as the North Pacific — is the North Pacific and equatorial Pacific has actually been very cold. The North Pacific had been the second coldest in history. Because it had been so cold, you had a La Niña which means that the water is cold. What that tends to do in that area, which the U.S. was in Brazil was, you get drought. Drought became epic across the U.S. Up until this year, the last few years. Now, if we look at the landing informant — La Nina forming, it is now blues, yellows, reds. If you look toward the ocean, you see it is getting colder over there. Drought is kind of bad. If you’ve got drought, it means we are probably hot and dry and that pollen is in the air and you suffer a little bit through those dryer periods. Pollen is in the air more. We see the colder water shifting towards the Indian Ocean. We are already seeing the weather kind of respondent China. China is getting very dry — respond in China. China is getting very dry. India, drying out. The pattern is shifting with the oceans. This is drought data. We picked back in November 1. 82% of the country was dry or drunk. — dry or drought. I have never seen at that high. Classic La Niña. Now we are down about 52%. Average this time of year, we had 48% of countries dry. We are making huge improvements over where we have been. We are down to 25% or 30% of the country. In California, it is over. Utah, it is over. You’ve got plenty of moisture here. Still has — Kansas still has some. Texas. In terms of the response, what are we seeing? Wildfires are important. They can burn up stuff. It exacerbates your allergies and your asthma. Wildfires are a critical component. What we see now is it is off the scale. We are 78% below average in terms of 2023 in terms of wildfire. Not much the burning out there because we have been so wet. 2017, we started off with just — off the scale wildfire season. It was a really bad allergy and asthma season as well. We are not there. That’s not the case right now. Right now are forecast is projecting, by the whole year — the time the whole year is over, we suspect the wildfires are down about 20%. Nothing like 2020, which was pretty bad — a pretty bad wildfire season. What happens after a big burn year like 2020, there’s not much underbrush left the barn. If you have a bad year like 2017, you don’t have much to burn. California rainfall is up 916% versus a year ago. [INDISCERNIBLE] A lot of rain is going to suppress that. There will be some growth this year. . In terms of underbrush. Once the snow melts. That will burn. The big huge fires, because of these streets full of moisture, you will not have a huge forest fire early this year, because of the ample moisture and the trees. We projected because of the shift in La Niña, we are projecting a very frequent cold front here — very frequent cold fronts here, leading to a lot of tornadoes. You are going to get tornadoes in the bill. We project the worst in four years. We are now off to the fastest part in six years. Tornado data does not go back as far. Up to the 1950’s. It is hard to say this is going to be the worst season in four years. It speaks to, if we have another high-risk — You have to keep on top of the medication and make sure you have it ready. You won’t be able to do things. Maybe hurricanes for sure. Hurricanes, we project in here another active season your. — here. We are projecting at least 15 named storms. Florida, one of the biggest, $57 billion in damages. People killed. In Fort Myers, they had to go three hours to get ice, they were without power for a month. These are the things that happen. Ian was a classic example of a consequence of the La Niña period. Hours later, it moved to the south all the way to Fort Myers. The shift, being very fast. You are like, we were safe in Fort Myers 24 hours ago. Of course Florida. We are worrying about Texas this year. The East Coast might be the top spots for her connectivity. A busy chart here. These bars of the year ahead whether. — weather. It is harder than average every year. — hotter then average. We’ve had an epically cold Christmas. In 125 years. It was off the scale cold. Late March, it flipped again. We got much colder. The red bar is going to be much harder than last year, the blue bar colder than last year, the beach bars are dryer — peach bars are dryer and the green a lot wetter. A lot of dry weeks there. We have some of that right now here in the spring. It is starting to materialize in the central and eastern part of the U.S.. If we look at the April-May timeframe, to pick up some really bad periods for allergies, we will pick the next two weeks unfortunately. You will have 80 or 90 degree weather next week. Off the scale. Second hottest in 125 years. Extremely hot, dry period in mid April. There is pollen suspension in the air. If you are a sufferer — And this is kind of a nationwide map. The whole nation looks to get very warm next weekend third week of April. Grass, trees for sure. The next high period for grass will be the warmer dryer week in late May going into the Memorial Day weekend. The next progress will probably be the third to the 10th of June, is probably the last of the severe allergy suffering. Then we see a colder weather trend through the next — through the rest of the year. Which is perhaps good news. Things will grow for sure. Grass is growing and vegetation is growing. It to some extent suppresses weeds. Ragweed tends to do well in a cold/dry scenario. It will not be able to stay in the air for weeks on end. That is the good news. Suddenly some good news on a national scale. Trees come in late February, early March in the South, middle April in the north. Grass, middle April to early May and late May, early June. We are protecting a cold, snowy winter. Next year, there could be — not as severe as this year. If you suffered in December, Christmastime, the cold bothers me a lot for my asthma, I cannot stand it. That could be the case for December, January, February. It is a long and intense winter for allergy sufferers. This is the middle spring period here. The April through May timeframe. We just want to look at the trends. The trend here for April is allergy season likely to be the worst in 11 years, Classics and enter of something — not as bad as 2012. If you remember 2012. Be prepared. The next two weeks are going to be pretty severe. If we look at these trends here, showing you the same weather maps. Temperatures on the left, precipitation on the right. This is for regional areas. This is for the April through May period. The next month or two. The orange areas, much warmer conditions. That is a good trigger for allergy. Peaches and browns, that is dry. Or triggers. — More triggers. The Southwest could be cooler weather. You’ve got tons of snow in those mountains. Again, this may suppress a little bit of your allergy and asthma suffering, in those wetter areas in the Southwest, Northeast. Cooler but drier, so you’ve got part of the occasion. Dry is the key. — of the equation. Dry is the key. Florida, again pretty dry. These are areas where we are concerned about higher instances of allergy suffering. You may be traveling to Europe. Looks like it will be cooler and much wetter in Germany. Suppressing more pollen that they have. You are probably not going to head to Russia, Moscow, they will have a pretty bad season with warm and dry conditions. Australia, very dry. We had a really cold, wet winter and summer. Their season is going to be pretty bad. This is a busy chart here. This might be more for the big farm companies trying to plan, trying to quantify the percentage of sales week by week anywhere in the world. In the April period, we’ve got the U.S. , a dry week. The blocked areas is where we have high incidence of allergy and asthma sufferers. We see May and April looks bad again. We’ve definitely got some suffering here. As we get towards Joan, July — June, July, August, when you are handwrite, it can suspend the pollutants. Even when you are high and dry, if the problem goes away, you are still dealing with pollutants. We believe the air quality if you will in the July-September timeframe is probably going to be pretty good compared to the last few years. The pollutant suffering may not be as bad. Ragweed will still grow, but it’s not going to be able to be as prolific. If it is colder and wetter, it will be choked up by other vegetation. It’ll be washing out the air and cleaning it up more frequently. The next two weeks here in April, a little bit and — in May. We will just end here. Very grateful for the partnership here. On the website, you can enter your ZIP Code and pick a date — If you are going to Hawaii, you may think, I’m home free here in the east, but you don’t know that when you are going to Hawaii in June that, yikes, their allergy indexes are off the scale, so you may not be prepared for that when you are going on vacation. I’m not out of the woods in Florida, but I’m going out to Minneapolis and we may not realize it’s an index of 9, 10, extreme suffering. This is based off of years of analysis. If you are trying to be savvy about how you monitor the elements, hey, you are right, it was sunny, windy [INDISCERNIBLE] It is helpful. You can monitor your triggers. It was hot, windy. Maybe it was rainy and wet. Maybe it is a mold type allergy. We’ve got free apps, it goes a year ahead. This will tell you kind of — This will help you kind of with the planning and being proactive with your suffering here. With that, I will stop here and hope we have questions.
>> Thank you, Captain Kirk. That’s great information. I think people initially when they saw this webinar they thought, it’s not a big deal, it’s just the weather. Just the weather? This really impacts our health, our allergies, our asthma. So controlling our asthma means controlling our allergies. So this is vital information that you are sharing with us. How to protect our health coming up through spring and summer and throughout the year actually. One thing that I thought was really interesting when you talked about your year out forecast is there are people next summer their planning weddings or city festivals or outdoor concerts or even European travel — we might want to know what we are going to be walking into as far as making plans. Are we going to need canopies? An indoor venue in that place? Thank you for sharing your information. That is really important. Let’s take a look at some of the questions here. Captain Kirk, how can this data be presented to the public? In your opinion what is the role of government and communicating climate crisis information? — in communicating climate crisis information?
Dr. Kirk: Their job is to protect citizens from tornadoes, life, and property, avalanches, long-term weather. . Is really been left up to some extent the corporations. The AccuWeather’s of the world to try to help folks. I just wish there was more in the science of longer-term. NOAA does put out a forecast. They are just not that great at it. There’s so much more that could be done. We want Fortune 500 companies to be proactive, with how much money they have made on their sales. Trying to help people manage diseases more. I think there are organizations out there that are not super government that could actually help. They’ve got to take it beyond the next week. That is reactive. You are reacting. If you knew that you were gonna have a horrible summer season, winter season, the severity catches up with us. I know there’s company competition protecting these outcomes. The best of the nest is what you have in your hand — of the best is what you have in your hand. As to how bad your allergies offering might be.
>> Next to let. Great information —
>> Excellent. Great information. What if anything are you able to observe regarding dampness or mold for allergies and health during wet cycles? I’m thinking about California and all the rain they have received lately on the flooding. Is it just drowned out by suppression of pollen and viruses that are made worse and dry times — in dry times?
>> Yeah. A lot of people suffer from mold. When it’s really humid, wet su mmers, your house is going to be more humid. It is more humid in the wintertime — the wintertime is very dry. It is human all the time — hum id all the time, you get mold in your home more easily. It is less likely to happen if it is hot and dry. I think if you are in the Pacific Northwest, in California, Utah, you had a ton of rain, and that continues for a bit here, that could be the trigger. Sometimes you don’t always know. Why am I sneezing? What’s causing this? It’s not the pollen. It’s something else. If you can, I highly recommend keeping a little log. We did research for migraine sufferers. I used to hear this funny story all the time. Migrant suffering is pressure. It’s not — if you think about it, if you go up a building, 50 stories high, the pressure drop going up the stories of the building is more than you will ever experience on a daily basis at the surface, right? So going up to your office in New York, it is not pressure, it is something else — figure out it was dry, hot, windy, figure out what was causing your specific trigger.
>> That’s a great idea. Some of my friends are physicians and they are like, we are just like detectives and we need all of the clues to be able to figure out what is going on to help you. Like you say, write down as much information as you can. What were you doing at the time? Were you inside? Were you outside? What was the weather like? Great information. I love that. What is the percentage of accuracy for the weather 360 for one to two months ahead?
>> Let me pull up the slide again. I didn’t show this chart. The accuracy of our app. We do a year ahead forecasts. — year ahead forecast. If you live in New York City, San Francisco, Hong Kong, near water — our forecast is just as accurate two months from now as it is 12 months from now because it is the same process that goes into each one of those. We have no way to change the April forecast. You look at the two week window, our forecast would be changing like everybody else’s two to three times a day because there is new data in that two week window. Beyond that, nothing new to be able to change our forecast. That is typically in the realm of a day six forecast. Google has the best weather, we say, but we are second to Google by a 10th of a degree, we are very close. But our forecasts in February was less error than that forecasts even though it was a year ahead [INDISCERNIBLE]
>> That is impressive. Thank you. That is great information. One of the things I was jotting down some notes about some things you were speaking of, and part of that is the wildfire forecasts for California, which affects everyone. I know one time the wildfire smokes affected the East Coast. A lot of the schools in the Pacific Northwest have added your scrubbers — air scrubbers to schools to protect children in schools because of how bad the forest fires are in California. Knowing that, we may still have fires in California, but they will be more grass fires and not as much burning a lot of timber. If anything, that could be a little bit of a ray of hope for people in California, once they dry out from all the flooding I guess.
>> We saw the smoke you guys had last year especially back in 2020, it made it all the way to the East. That was a couple of epic scenarios. We had beautiful gorgeous sunsets but could not see more than a mile or two because of all the thick smoke, even here in Pennsylvania. It went across the country. That is nothing that can actually happen with dust. It can be a trigger certainly for an asthma type scenario. Every year, sub Sahara Africa, you get big Bermuda high pressure in the Atlantic, the winds come off the Sahara desert which is just dusty, sand, desert, but there is certainly gunk in there, pollen and sand and dust. It’s been kind of unusual. The last two years, in part, because of the cycle we have been in. But it allowed that to get all the way to the U.S. Some days it just got really sick. It looked like smoke but it was suspended dust particles. Obviously if you have any kind of breathing element, that was going to be a factor. We do not see a Senate — a scenario where we see sub-Saharan dust. We are probably not going to deal with at this year.
>> Excellent. I love your information about fire season. What people don’t realize with asthma is, it can be deadly. I have a son that ended up in the ICU because of the wildfires — the smoke from the wildfire. Knowing this ahead of time, how to protect ourselves and take over is so important. This information really is invaluable. I had another thought, as you were talking about, in the fall, when would turn on the heat, for some of the areas that use central air or the forced air for air conditioning, is that the same sort of thing, what that also dry out the air and dry out the nose and allow more viruses, even in the summer or spring or summer?
>> In the summertime, you naturally have very high humidity. Ace of the Rockies, you have humidity. — East of the Rockies, you have humidity. The first thing you have to do is take the moisture out of the air. — it tries to do is take moisture out of the air, in the air conditioner cools your house is the goal. We don’t have a problem with low humidity — the southwest monsoon. You tend to have moisture in the air and summertime. Whatever you’re doing to put heat in your home, you are going to dry out that house at warp speed. I guarantee you if you humidity is south of 20%, that is to dry. If you put rats next to each other with a flu virus, if it was 68 degrees and 43% or higher humidity in that cage, they didn’t spread it in part because the virus didn’t have the longevity that it did in that environment and that was one — and it was warm. Whereas the flu virus in a cold, dry environment, that cold virus could last there for two days. Even in your home, if anything. I don’t like dry air. Keep your house around 43% humidity. Less flu issues. COVID and flu are spike viruses, they keep their integrity in a dry environment.
>> Interesting. Once again, this is information, as we are putting this together, thinking how this is really affecting our health. Absolutely, if you have a dry home, talk to your doctor, if he thinks you need a humidifier. I know my allergist was very specific that if we are going to use a humidifier, that we needed to keep it very clean and change it.
>> Yes.
>> Right.
Dr. Kirk: Mine is a big one. It does about a 3000 square-foot area. Change the filter every month. Chemicals to put in it to keep mold from growing in it.
>> Yes. It is interesting how all these things impact us. This is just fascinating to me. I am a little bit of a science nerd. We have someone in the chat that said they are experiencing the dust in Texas. Kind of what you were talking about with the dust that goes around the world depending on if there’s a drought somewhere else in the Middle East, well guess what? We might get there dust. Dr.
Kirk: There’s an area that could remain dry — it might be central or South Texas, until the hurricanes hit unfortunately. That is one area where, I think answers has to improve, but Texas might not. — Kansas has to improve, but Texas might not. If I had to pick a spot I would say it would has to be Texas — I would say it has to be Texas.
>> Speaking of dust, when I was in Arizona, I had just missed a dust storm. It had rolled in just after I left. Is that something that you can find out ahead of time if something like that is going to hit? If you are planning an outdoor wedding or you are at a baseball game or something?
>> They are microscale events. Things that can happen — those can be localized events. In the Southwest region, you are likely to get more monsoon storms toward the June timeframe. You might be worried about flood in some areas rather than a dust storm. Wet desert sand is probably not suspending in the air as much as dry.
>> Along with the thunderstorms, if you are visiting any of the national parks and going through some of these slot canyons, we have had already had drownings here in Utah because storms can make in these canyons. Knowing that ahead of time can also be very vital.
Dr. Kirk: I know some of the California mountains have some 1000 inches of snow. You will have a ton of snow.
>> Yes. It’s going to be interesting there. They are already getting sandbags ready. And the check, someone is asking, what app used to see this forecast?
>> You go to our website, Weather Trends 360 dot com. I believe this is freely available. There is this little education planner. We will pull it out of that buried area. You can pick any ZIP Code. You pick your ideal weather, if you want son or you want snow or rain — sun or you want snow or rain. If you click go, it will tell you the earliest for those conditions, the best week for those conditions and the second best week for those conditions in the year ahead. It is an e-planning tool. If you want to go to Disney World in Florida, and it better be 80 and sunny, it is good at predicting things like that. The lite version is free in the app store. It is a great planning tool. If you know your triggers for certain things, for me, as soon as it is over 32 degrees, I have a hard time breathing outside. — under 32 degrees, I have a hard time breathing outside. I think about staying inside more and getting a humidifier in my office.
>> Perfect. Thank you. We have time for probably just two more questions. How can we mitigate the expected effects of big weather events?
>> That’s a hard question. Nobody can tell you when a hurricane is going to hit. We can tell you we have another active year this year. We are not as worried about Alabama as we would be. Just always be prepared. . Once you go through something cataclysmic like that in Florida, I went through Eric fluid and had no — Hurricane Floyd and had no power for 12 days, during Sandy, for a week. I thought, I probably should invest in a generator, an emergency generator to keep my refrigerator cold for my medications. I am very much a planner. You want to take care of things. Have some kind of emergency plan. We have tornadoes here. Have a plan. What am I going to do? My daughter is in school and I am here. How do I handle that if I have to do something? A plan is better than no plan.
>> I was thinking the same thing. You see something like this happen and everybody has the grocery store and the shelves are empty. Planning ahead and having bottled water and batteries and whatever snacks on hand or whatever else you need in addition to the generator could be really helpful. Because you will go to the grocery store and shows are going to be empty. Our last question on here — This is probably when we were talking about the humidity in the home. What nasal saline solution help retain moisture? — Would nasal saline solution help retain moisture?
Dr. Kirk: I have a friend who was a Russian engineer and he is very huge on –[INDISCERNIBLE] The way he got me through it was actually singling solution. Sal ts, sometimes common sense is a better strategy than all the other crazy stuff that we do. Salt in nasal spray, I forgot the company that makes the sterile saline solution up your nose, and gargling saltwater kills viruses. It won’t allow the replication, in theory. He was a huge proponent when I had COVID to do the nasal saline solution, gargling with saltwater. It was backed up by research from big schools that showed that this does work. A lot of people didn’t know that that was an opportunity to get over COVID more quickly. In any event, that can work. You cannot use it all the time. It is something you use in a short-term environment. He would not recommend using that more than a week or two consistently.
>> Right. That’s one of those old-school things I learned from my grandpa going up — growing up. Gargle saltwater. It took care of it. Sometimes these old-school terms relate to what. Thank you, Captain Kirk. I could keep you on the line for hours. I’ve learned so much for — so much from you. We are going to have a survey. Please feel free to put information in there. I do look at every simple suggestion that comes up on the evaluation survey. I use that to plan the next webinars coming your way. If there’s information you want that you have not covered or you need to expand in an area, please let me know. Captain Kirk, if you could just go forward one more slide. Thank you. This will be our next webinar, this is April 18th.
SMART therapy: Making a science-based choice. Treating asthma where you use a single inhaler for your rescue and for your maintenance. We will talk more about that. This webinar, Smart therapy, will be available for continuation education credits. If you need that, definitely sign up for that one. Thank you again, Captain Cook. Any last things you want to say before we sign off?
Dr. Kirk: The proactive. Don’t be a reactive. The medication, the weather, stay on top of it.
>> That’s what I’m thinking, too. Start on your allergy medicine before you start sneezing and wheezing. Yes, thank you. Thank you, everyone, and have a great day.
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