The strongest wind gust recorded during Wyoming's Wednesday windstorm was a mind-blowing 144 mph. It occurred at the summit of one of the state's most notoriously windy places, Mount Coffin in Lincoln County.
But if there's a wind gust in the mountains and no one's there to feel it, does it really set a record as one of the strongest winds in Wyoming?
"It was recorded by a sensor along a ridgeline of an 11,000-foot mountain," said Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day. "Would it likely stand well against any other wind records out there across the state? Yes, but you have to put an asterisk by it."
Still, a 144-mph wind gust is a testament to the severity of Wednesday's winter windstorm. It doesn’t quite beat the state record, but it’s easily amongst the strongest winds ever recorded in Wyoming's history.
A Severe Coffin
At 11,255 feet, Mount Coffin is the second-tallest peak in the Wyoming Range. It's also gained a reputation as notoriously windy, with gusts over 120 mph recorded there last winter.
"It's possible that there were even stronger wind gusts that weren't detected," meteorologist Joshua Rowe with the National Weather Service (NWS) office in Riverton told Cowboy State Daily in February 2025. "It's definitely one of the windiest spots in Wyoming where we have a sensor."
Day noted that there were no other wind speed records from the sensor after that 144-mph gust. That doesn't mean there was a sudden calm on Mount Coffin.
"It looks like after that peak wind gust, there was an instrument failure, because the wind speed promptly went to zero," he said. "But from everything I looked at and know about that sensor, it's legitimate."
The Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center installed that particular sensor to give real-time data on snowpack and potential avalanches. It can withstand intense wind gusts, but someone might need to swing by to see it in person after Wednesday's winds.
Caught In The Act
When Pinedale photographer Dave Bell heard of the 144-mph wind gust on Mount Coffin, he decided to step outside and point his camera in that direction. Even he was wowed by what he saw.
"I stepped outside at sunset and saw the incredible snow plumes coming off Mount Coffin and Wyoming Peak," he said. "It was really cranking up there."
Bell said there's a vertical rise of around 2,000 feet on the exposed face of Wyoming Peak. From his perspective in Pinedale, the plumes of snow being blown off the mountains were at least that size, if not bigger.
"The vertical rise that you can see because of ridges in the foreground is around 2,000 vertical feet," he said. "The snow plumes coming off the peak were at least that long, if not longer, so we're talking 2,000 to 3,000 feet."
If the snow plumes were any indication, Bell's photographs could be physical evidence of one of, if not the, strongest wind gust ever recorded in Wyoming.
"Unbelievable stuff," Bell said.
A New Record?
Many agencies and individuals are calling Wednesday's 144-mph wind gust "one of the highest ever recorded in Wyoming." That much is true, but did that blow up the existing record?
Not quite. Meteorologist Lance VandenBoogart with NWS Riverton said the record, at least for western and central Wyoming, was set on Feb. 7, 2017, with a wind gust of 165 mph.
That gust was also recorded on Mount Coffin, which should secure its spot as the windiest place in Wyoming (sorry, Clark).
According to Day, wind records aren’t as meticulously documented as other weather extremes. There are several variables that can make results questionable and harder to verify.
"Wind records are a lot different than temperature records," he said. "There isn't a good database since there's a multitude of different wind sensors of different manufacturers at different locations. I am not the keeper of those records, and there really isn't a keeper of wind records unless it's from an airport."
Airports have been the standard bearers for wind and temperature records for decades. There were some intense wind gusts recorded at Wyoming's airports on Wednesday.
"We had a sustained wind of 54 mph at Hunt Field Airport in Lander, with one brief gust of 92 mph," VanderBoogart said. "That's pretty extreme for the Lander airport."
The strongest wind gust recorded in the lower elevations on Wednesday was 123 mph in Red Canyon, also near Lander.
No one denies the veracity of the 144-mph wind gust recorded on Mount Coffin, but Day doesn't find it overly impressive. Perspective is everything.
"You have to compare apples to apples with wind gusts," he said. "A record wind gust in Casper is going to be different than one on the top of an 11,000-foot peak. We wouldn't know the wind was like that unless we put a sensor there, and nobody was there to witness it. But it does put Wednesday's windstorm into perspective. It was screaming yesterday."
Editor's note: an earlier version of story reported Wednesday's gust of 144 mph was the highest recorded in Wyoming. This has been corrected.
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
