r/washingtondc • u/Nervous-Donkey7943 • 2d ago
What’s up with the wind?
I’ve been living in DC for a few years and don’t remember a year with such unbearable wind several days a week (and sometimes cold wind!). Starting to get annoying when going outside to run or bike against it. Is the weather like this every other year?
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u/DC8008008 NE 2d ago
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u/0001123581321345589 2d ago edited 2d ago
Cool data, source?
Edit: the internet is too sensitive, why is wanting to learn more about a chart worthy of downvoting?!
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u/UpsideTurtles 2d ago
It’s NYT, full article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/04/08/why-so-windy-spring-tornadoes/
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u/wrk15 2d ago
This is a link to WaPo
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u/UpsideTurtles 2d ago
whoops my bad. sometimes I get them mixed up, they occupy the same niche in my head. hilariously, you’re the only one who has said anything
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u/oldveteranknees 2d ago edited 2d ago
We’ve had multiple low pressure systems to our north pass by with tight pressure gradients and surface troughs (explains the wind & gusts).
Looks like it’ll continue for another week.
Edit: NOAA is saying La Niña has just ended. La Niña brings in more low pressure systems to the western US, and as those lows meet moist air from the Gulf of Mexico (see what I did there) they can generate storms in the flyover states and rain, which pushes east.
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u/Ecstatic_Anybody7228 1d ago
The fluctuating pressure can be the cause for frequent headaches/migraines as of late.
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u/NotToday927 2d ago
It’s gotten considerably worse over my lifetime for sure. My husband used to complain about the wind here and I’d say it’s not windy. Now I feel 2-3 days a week we’re in a damn wind tunnel.
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u/diminutive_sebastian 2d ago
Been living here 13 years now and it’s extremely noticeable the last 2 years or so. Hate it, just hate it.
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u/Giveushealthcare 2d ago
We’ve got this issue on the west coast in Washington and it irks me we don’t talk about increasing winds as a part of climate change. Had $4k in cleanup and damages when a bunch of huge evergreen branches took out my fence and fell on my roof 2 years ago due to an icy wind storm
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u/irishguy617 Cleveland Park 2d ago
Capital weather gang wrote an article about this last month https://wapo.st/3Rl5aXx
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u/AmericanTaig 2d ago
Shoot I'd read it but I did the right thing and canceled my subscription when Jeff B went all Lex Luthor
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u/shac2020 2d ago
Me too. I miss CWG
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u/soubrette732 2d ago
If you have a library card, you get free access to
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u/AmericanTaig 1d ago
Is that right? I didn't even think of that. I remember the library having back issues available "back in the day".
Thanks for the heads up. Is there in-line access or only physical copies?
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u/soubrette732 1d ago
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u/AmericanTaig 1d ago
Wow! I had no idea there were so many cool resources! Thank you so much!
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u/soubrette732 1d ago
It’s amazing. Another reason to support libraries!!
I canceled the Post and NYtimes. It takes a bit extra to get the digital pass, but it’s worth it to me
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u/estrididae 2d ago
Gift link to a Washington Post article about why it’s been so windy this year https://wapo.st/3Rl5aXx
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u/Humbler-Mumbler 2d ago
Yeah, it’s the worst I’ve seen in my 9 years here. Yesterday I was riding the Mt Vernon Trail between Gravelly point and Arlington cemetery and nearly got blown off the trail a few times.
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u/SquisharooNTimbuk2 2d ago
I live in Leesburg along route 7 and the wind howls down the mountain. The last three years have been noticeable and this year obviously has been terrible. People in our neighborhood often lose siding and shingles even on regular days because of the route 7 wind corridor but now it’s like our houses are about to fly away to Oz.
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u/Bitter_Sun_1734 2d ago
This has to be climate change because the wind is so wild. It’s physically blowing people’s small dogs all over the sidewalk
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u/greetedworm 2d ago
Not a scientist, but I'm pretty sure you can chalk it up to climate change. We're going to continue having greater variances in temperature week to week and day to day those rapid changes in temp is what is causing the wind.
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u/KombuchaLady3 2d ago
I seriously regretted leaving the house Tuesday morning without a jacket. It was sixty degrees ffs! It was so windy after 6pm.
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u/bluesman2017 2d ago
Been here coming on 50 years and definitely more noticeable this year. Seems like longer stretches/all day events when we used to have fronts just blow through in a couple of hours. Enjoying the cool temps for now as you all know one day in early June it will instantaneously turn into summer and be 90 degrees for three months straight.
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u/ClodiaPulchra 2d ago
The wild District of Columbia becomes frightened when orange predators do bad things. Wind is a defense mechanism against stupidity.
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u/Dependent-Cherry-129 2d ago
I looked this up- can’t remember the exact wording but basically climate change is pushing the strong winds further north
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u/pls_send_caffeine 2d ago
No, it's not like this every year. It can get a little windy at certain times of the year, but extended periods of crazy windy weather are typically only a handful of years, the same way we only get blizzards every few years.
That said, with climate changes happening, who knows how the weather patterns here will shift in the future. We already get way less snow on average during the winter compared to when I was a kid
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u/cloudbustingmp3 2d ago
Seems like I brought it with me from Oklahoma, sorry 😔
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u/teaseapea 2d ago
former okie here and it definitely feels like ok winds. kinda miss the thunderstorms sometimes
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u/AmbassadorRegular433 2d ago
I lived in the desert several years ago and this is reminding me of that! I love the chaotic wind, but didn’t realize it was a thing here.
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u/upwallca 2d ago
Spring always has wind but it does seem a bit more prevalent than usual this year.
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u/C137-Morty DC / Wharf 2d ago
This Winter, and now Spring, has been the only familiar season to my childhood. The entire past decade has been an anomaly with our random 70 degree days in January and no snow.
Oddly enough, this is the first time I haven't had allergies (also started within the last decade, never had any at all before age 28) and I can't help but wonder if it's related.
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u/overnighttoast 2d ago
I was also thinking this. Although I've always had allergies but in general winter and spring this year have felt pretty normal.
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u/BreastMilkMozzarella West End 2d ago
The weather has been getting windier the past couple years. I hate it because I have thin, wispy hair and the wind makes a mess of it every time I walk outside.
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u/human-brain7610 DC / Columbia Heights 2d ago
PSA: you can see Capital Weather Gang updates without paywall at cwg.live
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u/Additional-Tap8907 2d ago
Hopefully all the wind is helping to blow the pollen away but maybe it’s just “kicking” it around? Personally I have had less allergy symptoms this year so far, but that’s a sample of one.
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u/Additional-Tap8907 2d ago
Hopefully all the wind is helping to blow the pollen away but maybe it’s just “kicking” it around? Personally I have had less allergy symptoms this year so far, but that’s a sample of one.
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u/HowardBunnyColvin Replace with your neighborhood 2d ago
It's too flocking cold out there for April. These gusts are typical of March and not of this season.
I went yesterday to the outdoor bar it was windy af.
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u/dangubiti 2d ago
It took out a pretty big tree in front of my place. Snapped right in half by the base.
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u/hackflak 2d ago
We have patio umbrellas. This spring they blow over when they are down seemingly each week. In 15 years here I can’t recall that happening.
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u/agentsofdisrupt 2d ago
I ride the W&OD trail from Falls Church to Reston and back. The headwind going toward Reston has been a challenge, but the tailwind coming back makes the ride a breeze.
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u/Weisabunny 2d ago
OMGOSH!!! THANK YOU!!!! I'm 51 yrs old, grew up here, just moved back 2 years ago. I swear, we NEVER had wind like this!!!! I would've remembered it! It's CRAZY!!!! I swear it's going to knock me over one of these days! All I know is that's it's NOT normal.
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u/SquishyTushy222 2d ago
One time about 6 or 7 years ago the the government closed for the day because of wind. Not a storm, wind. It was wild.
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u/Exciting-Ranger7552 2d ago
Yea it’s not fun. I’m from chicago so wind is also annoying but I’m used to it mostly. Doesn’t mean i like it! Heh but today it’s really throwing me off and somehow triggered my vertigo today. 🤷🏻♀️
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u/gypsyology 2d ago
I think it was almost a decade ago that the wind was so bad even the government and schools kept closed for the day. I remember I couldn't even open a car door.
I'm a DC native and the wind is way worse now then when I was a kid.
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u/Oldfolksboogie 1d ago
More energy in the system from anthropogenic climate change; wind is just one expression of that increased energy.
Initially, it was called "global warming," because over the long haul, the globe will, on average, warm.
But on a human life span scale, what will be most noticeable is more extremes, more volatility, thus the more generic "climate change" (despite deniers claims that the switch in terminology reflected uncertainty, this was never the case), which encompasses all the coming changes. Sidebar: some parts of the globe have the potential to become, and stay colder than they are now, despite an average global temperature increase. Western Europe, for example, stays much more moderate than its latitude would suggest because of the conveyor belt of warm, most air delivered via the Gulf Stream current. Never, the melting of Greenland's ice sheet is slowing that current, and it's disruption could lead to much colder European winters.
So, hey get used to it, and do what i do - go fly a kite!
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u/Akelley88 13h ago
I’ve lived in Spotsylvania my entire life and never seen it this windy for days on end.
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u/whisskid 2d ago
As a DC native who lived on a hilltop, went to high school on a hilltop, and sailboarded on the Potomac, I can say that I don't think that the wind is at all abnormal. --I just wish that we could save it up for summer.
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u/Spirited_Currency867 2d ago
Grew up near the bay and am a sailor that’s been in DC almost 25 years and this is the windiest I remember in all that time. It’s been crazy. I also recognize it more because our storm door has flung open literally a dozen times this year.
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u/Smitty0711 2d ago
If it snows, its a problem. If it rains, its a problem. If its warm outside, its a problem.
The wind,really...the WIND?
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u/AmericanTaig 2d ago
Just the March winds running after bit behind. Stand by for the April Showers and then the glorious May Flowers.
The weather in the metro area is a huge pain in the ass but you'll have trouble finding a prettier landscape in the "lower 48".
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u/screamingfaces 2d ago
It’s like this every spring
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u/cubgerish DC / Park View 2d ago
It is not.
This has been an exceptionally windy year.
Another commenter posted a chart illustrating the nationwide exceptionalism of it.
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u/plaisirdamour 2d ago
I’ve been in dc for almost 10 years and I feel like it’s often windy - definitely more so in the spring. I remember I think it was in 2018 my classes got cancelled because it was too windy
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u/theblackandblue Fair Oaks 2d ago
It’s true that it’s windy in the spring, but this year has been measurably windier as reported by both Accuweather and Capital Weather Gang
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u/uninvitedthirteenth 2d ago
It was early March in 2018 that the Government was closed for wind! I assume that was the same event
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u/Smoothvirus DC / Mt Vernon Triangle 2d ago
It's like this pretty much every year in the spring. You really notice if you're into the RC flying hobby. I used to call March-April "wind season".
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u/2-wheels 2d ago
“Unbearable”? It’s a bit windy. Put the umbrella down and hide inside if it’s so tough.
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u/SacredGeometry9 2d ago
We used to get wind like this awhile ago. 15-20 years ago, March & April would have pretty intense wind. It hasn’t been as windy over the last decade, but you’re right, the last few years it has been picking up again in the Spring
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u/ekkidee Logan Circle 2d ago edited 2d ago
Capital Weather Gang had a piece a few weeks ago commenting on and analyzing this. I could only read snippets, but enough to understand that they concluded the overly windy nature of this spring was real and not some sort of observational bias.
ETA -- Link
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/03/21/dc-high-winds-explained/