How COVID-19 made us all think it's been really windy

So a funny thing has happened with everyone stuck at home for the better part of 2 months now. People all have been asking me why it has been so windy? The funny thing is it’s actually been less windy than normal for this time of the year.

The first thing I say to this question is that we are in the windy time of the entire year in Charlotte right now. Every year on average, since 1941, March and April have been the windy months on average for the year. The chart below shows the average wind speed by month for the year. I also highlighted where this year’s average wind speed has been for 2020. You can see March was 7.6 mph, and that was equaled in April at 7.6 mph. That is actually below our long term average of 8.4 mph.

Why is March and April so Windy on average?

This has a lot to do with the changing of the seasons as we go from Winter to Summer, a.k.a Spring. 🙂 The winter jet stream energy is still around from the but the days are also getting longer and warmer. This combo not only creates severe weather but also lots of wind. The sun heating the ground increasing the mixed layer and the huge pressure difference of wintertime low pressures and summer high-pressure systems really cranks up the wind.

So how is COVID-19 making me think it’s so windy?

This is a by-product of observational bias. We are all stuck at home at the windiest time of the year, spending more time outside, I mean the number of walks people have been on has to be a record. You aren’t distracted by driving back and forth to places, activities, vacation travel, and all the other things we normally would be doing right now if not for the Pandemic. So we notice things more, most have noticed the winds and I know a lot of you have noticed the birds. Did we always have so many were they always this loud?

This isn’t the first time I have run into this with the weather. I see it often when it’s cold or rainy or stormy people notice and wonder why there been so much of this. Usually, after looking at the data I can say yes or no its been above or below normal. The one that really sticks our is rain on the weekends. The fact that people are off on weekends and doing stuff outside means if it rains on the weekends and the weekends only people will perceive it rains all the time. Even if we are below average for rainfall. Conversely, if it rains a lot at night while people are sleeping they will think, hey it seems to not be raining much lately.

So chalk this up to us just noticing things that normally happen in March and April with the weather that we missed before. All due to being stuck at home due to COVID-19