Maybe you've heard it from a grandparent, or maybe you've said it yourself: "My knee's acting up. Rain's coming." The belief is so common that it's practically folk wisdom. Plenty of people trust their joints more than the evening forecast.
Here's the surprise. When scientists looked closely, the evidence didn't back it up. Large studies have found no clear link between weather and joint pain. Researchers think the connection is largely or entirely a trick of perception, the way our memories latch onto the times pain and bad weather happen together. The pain itself is real, of course. It's the weather link that doesn't hold up. The one possible exception is headaches and migraines.
A Very Old Belief
This idea has deep roots. Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician, may have been the first to claim a link between weather and pain, around 400 BC. Over the centuries it settled into everyday sayings like "aches and pains, coming rains" and "feeling under the weather." Personal stories, including ones shared by tennis star Monica Seles, have helped keep the belief going strong.
Early medical writing seemed to agree. In 1887, an American medical journal described a single patient with phantom limb pain whose complaints rose with approaching storms and falling air pressure. In 1929, a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association claimed strong evidence that warm weather helps arthritis patients and pressure changes hurt them.
What the Big Study Showed
Modern researchers had something those early doctors didn't: enormous amounts of data. A 2017 study in the British Medical Journal looked at millions of Medicare doctor visits for joint or back pain between 2008 and 2012. It matched them against daily rainfall records from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
If rain really stirred up aching joints, you'd expect more visits on rainy days. The study found no relationship at all, both among older Americans overall and among people with rheumatoid arthritis in particular.
The Elevator Problem
A popular explanation is that falling air pressure before a storm makes joints swell or ache. But Dennis Driscoll, a professor of atmospheric sciences, has pointed out that the pressure changes that come with storms are rather small.
In fact, he noted, the change is about the same as what you'd feel riding an elevator up a tall building. And people with arthritis aren't known for being laid low by elevator rides.
Why It Feels So True
Our brains are pattern-hunters. When we judge whether two things are connected, such as pain and bad weather, we tend to focus on the times they happen together. A stormy day with a sore knee sticks in memory. A sunny day with a sore knee, or a rainy day with no pain at all, slips by unnoticed. Psychologists call this an illusory correlation, and it's a cousin of confirmation bias.
Headaches may be different. A 2023 study in the journal of the American Headache Society found that low air pressure, pressure changes, higher humidity, and rainfall were linked to more headaches.
None of this means your aches aren't real. If your joints are bothering you, rain or shine, talk to your doctor. But when it comes to predicting the weather, it may be time to let the forecasters take over, and give your knees a well-earned rest.
