Link: https://old.reddit.com/r/HighStrangeness/comments/1u4osuo/halny_and_other_madness_inducing_winds/

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The original was posted on /r/highstrangeness by /u/Megalordow on 2026-06-13 11:43:58+00:00.

Halny is the name of the wind blowing in the Western Carpathians - in southern Poland, Slovakia and northern Hungary. It is a warm, dry and gusty wind that blows towards the valleys. Sometimes it causes significant damage: it tears off roofs and destroys forests (creating windfalls). It occurs mainly in autumn and early spring. Sometimes it causes a flood if the snow evaporates slowly when it melts rapidly. In autumn, it accelerates the ripening of seeds and cereals. It leads to losses in the tree stand. However, the strangest phenomenon is its effect on living beings. Due to rapid changes in air pressure, some people become depressed, others become irritable, and the number of suicides, fights and murders increases. Animals also behave strangely. It all sounds like a superstition of hot-headed highlanders trying to justify their actions... But it's not a superstition. This is a scientifically confirmed fact (here is an example of scientific work proving that halny actually causes an increased number of suicides: https://ruj.uj.edu.pl/server/api/core/bitstreams/af94dcb4-c29a-46ce-841d-ca80a2c47980/content ). Halny is not the only wind of this type (so-called "foehn"). Other examples include Raco blowing in Chile or the Israeli Sharav.

Of course, the real impact of foehns on humans' well-being and behavior is quite limited, like increasing the number of suicides by 10%, not some apocalypse. Nevertheless... the wind that induces living creatures to (self-) aggression is something, well, strange.

More trivia like that: https://adeptus7.itch.io/lovecraftian-inspirations-from-real-life-and-beliefs