After 50-70mph winds ripped up trees and destroyed a greenhouse in Boise very early Sunday morning, many are hoping the valley does not see more of the same on Tuesday afternoon and evening. Another cold front has it sites set on Idaho's Snake River valley. While this one is not as potent as Monday's, many people are still concerned about their property.
KIVI's Shane Johnson Reports on Windstorm
So why are we experiencing so much wind in the valley? Wind is just the movement of air. If you apply pressure to an air mas it will move. This is happening constantly around the globe but we experience it more in the spring and a bit in the fall. It's a battle of the seasons...winter is trying to hang on but warmer spring temperatures are creeping northward.
On Sunday it was 80 degrees in Las Vegas while the Treasure Valley was just 46. These temperatures difference in the spring create pressure differences that cause more wind. The end result is a wild & windy March for the valley.
As the summer warmth engulfs North America, the winds are much less dramatic. This is because temperatures are fairly consistent so the pressure differences are weaker.
There were some who thought a tornado hit Boise in the wee morning hours of Monday but despite uprooted trees this was not the case. When that strong cold front moved through, the wind closest to the ground encountered a lot of friction as it has to blew around and over trees and buildings. So the strongest winds were just a couple thousand feet above the ground. So most areas experienced 45-55 mph winds. In the areas that had the strongest winds, isolated thunderstorms had developed which transported the damaging winds aloft down to the ground. This ocurred in very localized areas. It was just like adding another 20 mph from the thunderstorm to the 50mph winds that were roaring through the valley.
