Has this spring been windier than usual?

That question has been coming up a lot lately and I finally found some good information that backs up this idea that we've had more than our fair share of wind. I'm breaking this down into a couple different ways to look at it. First, looking solely at the month of April, and then meteorological spring (which started on March 1st and continues until May 31). Please click on the graphs if they are hard to read.

Let's look at the month of April. We are counting the number of days that have had wind gusts at or above 35 knots (kts) OR 40 mph:

Wichita (April only):

• 13 of the 25 days - so far - have had gusts of at least 40 mph
• You'll see that 2009 was quite windy (16 days with gusts of at least 40), and still holds the prize in recent record keeping

Dodge City:

• 16 days so far - more to come - making this one of the windiest months of April since 1973

Goodland:

• 17 days - and likely climbing - with gusts of 40 mph or stronger - making it one of the windiest months of April in recent record keeping

Salina:

Now if we look at March 1-April 24 (basically spring so far) and remember, we only have 56 days recorded this year.

Wichita:

• 24 days so far
• In 2021, there were 28 TOTAL days in all of March, April, and May

Dodge City:

• 29 days so far - compare that with 36 days in all of March, April, and May

Goodland:

• 26 days so far - compare that with 26 days TOTAL for March, April, and May in 2021

Salina:

• 19 days so far - compared to 25 days TOTAL in March, April, and May 

I think given this information; we can conclude this spring has been windier than most spring seasons in Kansas. Unfortunately, in a year that isn't getting much rainfall, dry is only turning drier and drought continues to expand. 

We will have a May outlook coming soon - and if we see other windy records that are noteworthy, I'll try to get those posted here too.

Have a great day.