Aim: To determine the effect of a severe cyclone on incidence of glomerular disease (GD) in Central Queensland, Australia.

Background: There is a growing body of evidence that incidence of GD is increased by environmental pollution. To date, no studies have investigated any correlation between severe cyclone and the incidence of GD.

Methods: This was a retrospective observational single region study of all GD 3 years pre‐ and post‐cyclone Marcia which occurred on 20th February 2015. Exclusion criteria were GD due to hepatitis B or C virus, HIV‐associated nephropathy, plasma cell dyscrasias, and paraneoplastic glomerulopathy.

Results: There was an increased rate of anti‐neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA) associated renal vasculitis (AAV) following Cyclone Marcia (pre‐cyclone: 1 case, 1.5 cases per million person years (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.5 to 4.5)) to post‐cyclone: 10 cases, 15.1 cases per million person years (95% CI: 5.5 to 24.6) with incidence rate ratio (IRR): 10.0 (95% CI: 1.4 to 444.0), p = 0.006). There was no change in incidence rate of other GD diseases such as IgA nephropathy (3 cases vs. 8 cases, IRR: 2.7 (95% CI: 0.6 to 15.6), p = 0.15), lupus nephritis (1 case vs. 4 cases, IRR: 4.0 (95% CI: 0.4 to 197.0), p = 0.22), membranoproliferative glomerular nephritis (0 cases vs. 2 cases), membranous nephropathy (3 cases vs. 7 cases, IRR: 2.3 (95% CI: 0.5 to 14.0), p = 0.23) and minimal change disease (2 cases vs. 3 cases, IRR: 1.5 (95% CI: −3.7 to 21.9, p = 0.69).

Conclusions: This study suggested an association between a category V cyclone and increased incidence in AAV. This association was not observed in IgA nephropathy, lupus nephritis, membranoproliferative glomerular nephritis, membranous nephropathy and minimal change disease.