The Plains and Midwest are no strangers to wind, its some of the windiest places in the country. However, we typically do not experience wind on the scale of what we did on Saturday. Many locations across eastern Nebraska and western Iowa saw wind gusts over 40 mph, and in some spots above 50 mph. Omaha Eppley recorded a peak wind gust of 54 mph. In parts of central Nebraska, winds exceeded 60 mph. There were scattered reports of damage to trees, some power outages, and even a store facade in Denison was damaged. Those winds were no joke!
On average, April is the windiest month for Omaha with the average wind speed over the entire month at 12 mph.
On Saturday, the average wind speed at Omaha's Eppley Airfield was 25.8 mph, that is windy! The last time Omaha was windier for the whole day was on April 23, 2022 when the average wind speed for the day was 26.4 mph. It's not common for days to have average wind speeds over 25 mph. Since 1948, when hourly data began to be recorded at Eppley Airfield, there have been 73 days with an average wind speed above 25 mph.
If average winds per day above 25 mph are rare, then winds above 30 mph are more rare. In the same timeframe as above, there have only been 6 days with an average wind speed above 30 mph. Those dates are: March 7, 1950; January 20, 1954; December 10, 1957; December 8, 1963; March 17, 1965; and January 18, 1996.
Of those above dates, the windiest day in Omaha since 1948 is January 18, 1996. On that day, the average wind speed was 32.9 mph. Wind gusts topped 63 mph at Eppley, while some other spots in the Omaha metro saw wind gusts over 70 mph. With the temperatures around 0, wind chill values dropped as low as -30.
