One of the things Wyomingites learn early in life is to make the best of the state’s infamous winter winds so that it doesn’t get the best of them.
That’s particularly the case when people live in wind tunnel zones like the tiny town of Chugwater just off Interstate 25 between Cheyenne and Douglas, which has the dubious distinction of being smack dab in one of the Cowboy State’s windiest spots.
This week, those winds left dozens of blown-over semitrailers littered across Wyoming highways.
“You’ll find the windiest places in Wyoming are on the east side of mountains or higher ridges,” said Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day. “And so that Chugwater-Bordeaux area, when you are driving through there, you will notice there are some bluffs and all of that stuff.”
That eye-catching geology acts a bit like a thumb over a garden hose, Day said. In this case, the part of the thumb is played by all the rocky bluffs, while the part of the water is played by wind.
That’s made the past several days fun for Chugwater, as Wyoming recorded 105 mph winds in some places.
That closed the entire expanse of I-80, from Cheyenne to Evanston, to all light, high-profile vehicles under 40,000 pounds gross vehicle weight. A similar closure applied to most of I-25 from Cheyenne to Sheridan.
The 105-mph wind was recorded on Chief Joseph Highway north of Cody. Mount Coffin, meanwhile, had wind gusts up to 86 mph, and the Snowy Range was treated to a snow dump of 75 inches.
Wyoming Highway Patrol reported that crews are out working to remove blown-over trucks, but that some of them may be stuck on their sides for a while.
They’ve asked people to be mindful of that by slowing down as they pass by and moving over for emergency and work crews. Interstate 80 remains closed to light, high-profile vehicles from Cheyenne to Rawlins.
Laugh Instead Of Cry
Wyoming residents could grumble about the windy conditions, but that’s not the Wyoming way. Instead, they find ways to laugh about it.
Like a video posted to social media by the Soda Fountain in Chugwater that captures the spirit of living in Wyoming’s wind.
In it, the Soda Fountain’s cowboy chef George Atchison holds out a large coffee mug while he braces himself in front of the Chugwater Soda Fountain, then proceeds to try pouring coffee into it.
The coffee never makes it into the mug as the wind does what comes naturally — blowing the coffee out into a caramel-colored ribbon past the opening of the mug.
Atkinson struggles to stand up straight and keep a straight face at the same time in the strong gale.
A snippet of a Chancey Williams song called “Wyoming Wind” rounds out the 5-second advertisement, which invites people to come on in for a fresh cup of windy coffee in big white letters.
“Take a break from the blustery roads and come in for our homemade soup and salad lunch special and a cup of coffee,” the fine print says in the post, then adds, “We’ll get more (coffee) in your cup, promise!”
Cowboy Common Sense Wins Again
Atchison blamed Soda Fountain owner Jill Winger for the video idea, which he said was just a spur-of-the-moment thing.
“She’s the director, I’m the comedy relief,” he said, chuckling a little bit. “She came in here this morning and said, ‘I have an idea for a reel,’ and I said, ‘Ok, I’ll take a video of you.’
"And then she said, ‘No, absolutely not. We’re taking the video of you.' And so that is how it all happened.”
Atchison was in the middle of preparing for December's latest Supper Night at the Soda Fountain, but he’s always up for a little fun.
He did suggest to her that she was a little bit crazy first. Ultimately, he added, that’s OK because he’s just a little bit crazy himself.
“Yeah, you kind of have to be (crazy),” he said. “To be working out here and doing beef Wellingtons in December, that is just a little crazy.”
The beef Wellingtons are just one of the items on the menu for Supper Night, which is a fancy affair held once a month or so.
Also on the menu are Parmesan rolls with crab butter, Caesar salad, butter-poached lobster, and salted caramel cheesecake.
Supper Nights take place every so often at the Soda Fountain, and they’re so much fun, they actually changed Winger’s mind about selling the place.
Atchison said Winger's video idea went off without a hitch and was perfect the first time. Part of that’s because he put his Wyoming common sense to good use on the setup.
“I knew I had to find the right position, where the coffee wouldn’t get on me,” he said. "So, it was actually going to fly off into the street.
"And then we had to just make sure we weren’t going to get hit by a car or anything.”
After that, it was a matter of bracing himself for the wind coming at him, which he estimated was going somewhere around 60-65 mph at the time.
The only thing Atchison wasn’t able to do for the video was wear his cowboy hat.
“I couldn’t even get it on when I was leaving the house,” he said.
A cowboy hat might have seemed visually perfect in the video, but he would have had to tie it on with a rope or something like that to keep from losing it.
Then the wind would have ended up looking like it was lassoing him, stealing the focus away from the coffee joke.
So, it’s probably just as well he left his cowboy hat at home.
Cowboy common sense wins again.
Why The Jet Stream Is Screaming
Wind and Wyoming go together because Wyoming’s latitude puts it squarely under the jet stream in winter, which is generally where the strongest, fiercest, fastest wind on the planet is continually blowing at any given time.
The Cowboy State’s elevation means many communities are up closer to the jet stream in winter than anywhere else in the United States.
That’s given Wyoming a certain reputation for winter wind, a reputation that’s deserved. A map of high wind in winter shows Wyoming is ground zero.
That’s one of the reasons Wyoming has 400 miles of snow fences.
“We’re higher and we’re closer to it,” Day said. “Then we add the thumb over the garden hose thing. When weather systems move across the Continental Divide, there’s a change in air pressure on the western side of the divide.”
The air pressure in Salt Lake City has been much lower than the air pressure over in Rapid City, South Dakota. That’s pulling air from west to east.
“If you look at a map of the Rocky Mountains, Wyoming has the biggest gap between mountains of any other Rocky Mountains,” Day said. “You have a gap between the Bighorns and the Casper Mountains. You have a gap between the Wind River Mountains and the Snowy Range.
And you have these areas where the air goes through those gaps and that air gets accelerated. So, it’s a function of our latitude, our altitude and our topography.”
Arctic air north of Sheridan, meanwhile, set the state up for a differential that makes high wind even more likely.
“I mean, Sheridan got 6 inches of snow last night, and they’re, like, 12 degrees right now,” Day said Friday. “But in Cheyenne it’s 56. That big difference in air temperature causes that gradient to be strong.”
Warm Pacific and desert air are being pulled up north and meeting that cold air.
“That causes just a ribbon of really strong winds aloft,” Day said. “I mean, there was a time where the jet stream winds at 30,000 feet over parts of Wyoming was moving at over 180 mph.
"That’s screaming, OK? That’s on the high end of how strong it can get.”
Keeping It Wyoming
Atchison feels the windy cup of coffee video he and Winger created perfectly captures one of the things that make Wyoming a unique place to be.
“Those of us who live in Wyoming, we live here for a reason,” he said. “The wind, even though we hate it, it keeps us Wyoming. It keeps us from changing into some other place.”
When the interstates get shut down for a wind event like the one this week, that affects businesses all up and down the corridor, Atchison added.
“You don’t have a lot of business,” he said. “So instead of complaining about it, you find something creative to make fun of it.”
It also makes the point, with subtle humor, that everyone is putting up with the same hardship and life doesn’t stop for the wind.
That means communities, if they want their businesses to continue in the winter, have to show their support, come high water, high wind, or high snow. It’s a two-way street.
“If we can get in, we’re going to be open, and we’re going to ensure food,” Atchison said. “We did that all last winter and the winter before.”
Sometimes he and Winger even showed up when there were no travel advisories, Atchison added.
“Jill and I have still come in and made sure if they close the interstate that people could come here,” he said. “And then a lot of the people at the rest area, they’ll hear that we’re open.
“It’s just nice for them to be able to come down and get a cup of coffee or a hamburger or something.”
Atchison said he doesn’t think this week’s wind was anything unusual compared to previous years.
“We’ve had stronger wind,” he said. “This is just more, it was just sustained for three days, I think, and with all the rollovers and that, I think it just caught people’s attention.”
That’s an assessment Day agrees with.
“I can fill you full of data and spreadsheets to say that this is a common phenomenon,” Day said. “But people tend to remember the most extreme events, and they don’t necessarily remember the other ones.”
While the unusual number of blow-overs is weather related, Day added, there are other variables to that besides weather, including having more trucks on the road than previous years.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
