Extreme Fire Weather Concerns for the Western U.S.; Severe Weather and Flooding Threats for the Central U.S.

Extremely critical fire weather conditions are expected to develop across the Great Basin and Southwest today, and exceptionally dry and windy conditions will promote rapid wildfire spread through the weekend. Scattered severe thunderstorms and heavy rain are possible across parts of the Ozark Plateau into lower Ohio Valley and parts of the northern Rockies into adjacent Great Plains. Read More >

April 2022 Windiest on Record!

You may have noticed that it was a bit windy across the High Plains during the month of April. Many have asked "How unusual was all the wind?' and we have looked through our available climatological data to try to answer this question. Due to the way wind measurements have changed over the years, long term wind records can be difficult to establish. Using a dataset going back to 1965 NWS Goodland looked at the following criteria:

Average Daily Wind Speed (records went back to 1984)

Number of Days With Wind Gust >= 50 mph (records back to 1975)

Number of Days With Peak Sustained Winds >= 30 mph (records back to 1965)

For all three of these categories, April 2022 ranked #1.

Average Daily Wind Speed	17.7 mph
Number of Days with Wind Gust >= 50 mph	10 days
Number of Days With Peak Sustained Winds >= 30 mph	18 days

The following tables show how April 2022 compare to previous years. The top 10 values are plotted and in the case of a tie all years that reached the value are included.

Top 10 April Average Wind Speeds

Number of Days With Peak Wind Gust >= 50 mph

Number of Days With Maximum Sustained Wind Greater Than 30 mph.

What makes April of 2022 even more impressive is that April is on average the windiest month of the year, with April, March and May being the months with the highest average wind speed. The following graph courtesy of the Iowa State Mesonet

-JRM

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