It was another windy weekend in Wyoming, with winds hitting more than 100 mph in western parts of the state.
The strongest wind gust recorded was 116 mph on Mount Coffin, just east of Smoot in the mountains of Lincoln County. It’s one of the windiest places in Wyoming, with a gust of 120 mph recorded at the 11,230-foot summit in February.
But it wasn’t the strongest wind gust ever recorded in Wyoming - that record is still held by a 128-mph blast in Clark in 2022. Stronger gusts may have been blowing than the ones on Mount Coffin, but meteorologists can’t say for certain.
“There very well could have been wind gusts that have broken that record already, but there wasn't anything there to measure it,” said Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day. “We might very well find areas that are getting stronger winds than that.”
Windy Everywhere
Day said wind is like water: it will always go where it’s easiest to move. That’s why places like Mount Coffin, Clark, and other areas like the Red Canyon in South Pass are notoriously windy.
Overnight on March 16, a wind gust of 107 mph was recorded in the Red Canyon. A 92-mph gust was recorded on Mount Coffin during the same period.
“Winter and spring are the seasons when we see winds of this magnitude,” Day said. “There are several times during those seasons when wind records could be broken.”
Wyoming’s topography makes it a natural wind tunnel, and some places channel and accelerate wind better than others. That’s why Clark and northwest Wyoming are perpetually windy.
“Clark is in a unique position because of the drainage that comes off the mountains,” Day said. “In an environment where you got the mountains and a way to channel the air through a canyon, that helps accelerate the wind. That’s where you'll see the highest wind gusts.”
The Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River squeezes wind as it blows through, just like putting your thumb over the end of a hose will aggressively channel and spray water. The community of Clark sits right at the mouth of the canyon.
“Clark is in an area where the air and wind want to move,” Day said. “The terrain lines up with the prevailing winds. Whoever decided to settle Clark put it right into the jaws of a high wind area.”
Sense Its Presence
There could be windier places in Wyoming than Clark and Mount Coffin. But if a wind gusts in the mountains and nothing’s there to detect it, does it really blow?
The only way to record Wyoming's strongest winds is for sensors to be installed in the area where they occur. Day said sensors are installed in many of Wyoming’s windiest places but not everywhere it blows.
“Most of these wind sensors are in mountain locations,” he said. “They’re installed to track wind, snowpack, and mountain precipitation. They’re put in places where people don’t live because we need to monitor what’s happening up there.”
Day believes it’s entirely possible that winds stronger than 128 mph are blowing in places where sensors haven’t been installed. But sensors aren’t installed in the vague hope that records might be broken.
“If we put more sensors up in these mountain locations, we might find areas that are getting stronger wind gusts,” he said. “The thing is, there’s got to be a sensor for us to know what the wind speed was.”
Welcome To Windy Wyoming
It might only be a matter of time before Mount Coffin surpasses Clark with Wyoming’s strongest wind gust, but it’s far from the only candidate that could top the charts. Wyoming’s just a wonderland for wind.
“It’s always windy in Wyoming,” Day said. “It’s a function of latitude, terrain, and topography. There’s no getting around it.”
Day said the eastern edge of high mountain ranges tends to create a “very turbulent flow” of wind. Since much of Wyoming sits along the eastern edge of several mountain ranges, it makes the entire state a natural wind tunnel, but thankfully, it’s not as bad everywhere.
“If you’ve got mountains, you've got a way to channel air, which helps accelerate the wind,” he said. “But terrain plays a part too. You’ll notice that we don’t get these 100-mph winds in downtown Casper. That’d be awful.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
