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No it’s not windy, its just winter! Seriously, as I gathered research for this wind video I was shocked that it was really as windy as it felt in December. Like 31 days of wind! 31 days! Absolutely bananas! Now we know why we all were wondering when the wind would stop. And for that matter it hasn’t stopped. HAPPY WINTER!
No it’s not windy, it’s just winter! Around here, we have a curse word that might just be a Wyoming exclusive curse. The W word. If you live here, you know what I’m talking about. If you’re thinking of moving here, you will learn it pretty quickly. Yes, the W word, W-I-N-D. Hi, I’m Alisha Collins with RE/MAX The Group, and Alisha Collins Real State Team. And if you’re thinking of moving to Wyoming, you should know that we do have a little bit of wind, and this winter, it feels like nothing but wind. I have to say that this winter has been a little on the strange side. Warmer than usual and way windier than usual. I thought maybe it was just me, feeling like the wind just hasn’t stopped but looking at weatherspark.com , I see that no, not just me. And all of us are talking about it. The charts show the range of wind speeds, and you can even look at daily, monthly, and historically. I looked at the wind speed of the gusts in December in Casper and in Cheyenne. Maybe it isn’t fair to just look at the speed of the wind gusts but if the wind gusts are up, then naturally the average wind speed for that day is up as well. I really like the graphs at weatherspark.com . I was able to fairly easily count the number of days in December that had wind gusts of over 40 miles per hour this year compared to 2020. This year in Casper, no surprise to those of us that live here, 24 days with the speed of wind gusts over 40 miles an hour. Let that sink in. 24 days. That means we only had seven days under 40 miles per hour. And if that isn’t enough, only one of those seven days had gusts lower than 20 miles an hour. So 30 days in December of 2021 had over 20 miles per hour of wind gusts. In Cheyenne, they had 17 days of wind gusting over 40 miles per hour. They even had one day with sustained winds in the 40 mile per hour range with gusts of 76 miles per hour. Cheyenne also experienced only one day in the entire month of December where wind gusts didn’t reach 20 miles per hour. Now, do you see why it’s considered a dirty word around here? On those rare days when the wind does actually stop, it’s a major no-no to say the W word. Maybe it is just a superstition but it feels as if Mother Nature will hear you mention that there’s no wind. And decide to turn it back on and up. So when the wind disappears, we just enjoy the reprieve and try not to mention it out loud. Just in case. So we have had a lot of wind this year. But isn’t it always windy in winter in Wyoming? Well, again, according to weatherspark.com, last year in Casper in December, there were only 11 days of gusts over 40 miles per hour. And I remember thinking last year, it was super windy. In Cheyenne, it went from nine days to 17 with wind gusts over 40 miles per hour from last year to this year from 11 up to 24 and 9 to 17. Yep, this year is windier than last year all over. That is just December. I really hope that the rest of winter doesn’t follow the same trend. The US National Weather Service in Cheyenne shared a post on their Facebook page that as of December 12th, they had issued more high wind warnings in this winter season than any other winter in the last 15 years. Well, I really didn’t need more proof that this winter is windy but there it is anyway. Headlines about hurricane force winds are pretty common through the winter months around here. So far this winter is shaping out to be one of the windiest in years. Often the winds make it feel colder than sometimes the weather actually is. For, example, this week, we’ve had a major weather shift, dropping below zero with little to no wind. Then the wind picked back up but so did the temps. It swung almost the way up to 50 degrees from zero. It did not feel like 50 though. I do have to admit that there are many times that I think I would rather have less than zero temperatures with no wind. So on a day that isn’t that windy, shh, don’t tell Mother Nature, with the temperatures outside of 29 degrees, but with 12 to 16 mile per hour winds, it feels like only 19. Can you imagine what a day with 40 mile per hour winds might feel like? So like I said, this year seems super weird, windy and warmer than usual. But again, feelings aren’t always accurate. So I looked at a comparison to last year. This year, we have had over 16 days in December alone with over 40 degree temps. Last year, there was only 10. Actually, the 10 did surprise me. Without data, it often feels like the coldest, windiest winter ever but with data, 40 is not bad. And in addition to the warmer weather, it has been a fairly dry winter so far, for Casper anyway. It seems the snow storms keep going right around us, leaving it pretty dry. So now I have to ask, why is it windier than normal? Does anyone know the answer to that? I have heard that due to the La Nina effect, we will have a warmer, windier winter than normal but La Nina is the cooler part of the global weather pattern so that being the reason for warmer winds really doesn’t make that much sense. Traditionally, La Nina effect means colder temperatures throughout the northern parts of the United States, including Wyoming. If it were an El Nino year, then it could be the cause of the warmer winds but since it’s La Nina, it is supposed to make it cooler around here. This year’s La Nina effect is supposed to be less than last year, which was a colder winter than this one, so far anyway. So I’m not sure what the rest of the winter will bring. The Farmers’ Almanac says a cold snowy winter is in store for us but with the warmer, windier December we’ve had, it isn’t looking like the Almanac will be right this year. AccuWeather also predicts a colder than normal winter for us. Colder than normal. So whatever the rest of this winter brings, snow or not, colder or warmer, unfortunately, I am sure it will bring even more the W word regardless because that is just part of life in Wyoming. Like I read somewhere, 75 miles per hour winds might be called a hurricane anywhere else but in Wyoming, we call it an afternoon. Thank you so much for joining us on YouTube. Please subscribe and hit the bell so you are notified every time we drop some new content. We love spending time with you on YouTube. We want you to love where you live.