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Anecdotally, in my 9 years of living in both I remember more dust storms in IF than Poky. Probably due to the flatter topography.
Your memory serves you well.
Dust storms are not common in S.E. Idaho, at least in the most common conception of them.
There's so much ground here under tillage that there isn't much open ground to spawn an honest-to-goodness dust storm. All the planted crops hold the dust down even on windy days.
And because of heavy urban forestation, dust storms are never as severe in either city as they are in the surrounding open, rural farmgrounds.
Only 2-3 days ago, we had 50 mph winds all day long in Bonneville County, but there wasn't much dust blowing inside Idaho Falls; paved streets and lots of lawns and trees, along with the moisture from the river, all serve to keep the dust down in town to barely noticeable levels.
But about 10 miles north of town in I-15,in the notorious low spot where high winds form a weak vacuum on the roadway, the dust was so thick the state closed the highway.
Again. That stretch always gets closed in a high wind. For about 8 miles, due to the peculiarities of the terrain, a high wind can raise so much dust it's blinding. Drivers will hit the brakes because they can no longer see and get hit from the rear by the vehicle being them. Semi-trailer have tipped over and drivers have collided with the trailer because they couldn't see it.
Others have hit the embankments of some of the overpasses that span the Interstate in that area.
It's one of the deadliest stretches of I-15. The State and Federal Highway Depts. have worked on it for almost 40 years now, trying to find ways to make it safer in a windstorm.
They have planted windrows of Russian Olive trees, staggered with windrows of Blue Spruce behind, and taller trees behind them, hoping to break up the wind.
They've tried miles of special fencing, and have paid farmers to use their fields close to the highway for their hay storage, so haystacks that are 30 feet high and acres long will act as windbreaks. The hay is hard to reach for the farmers, but the payment makes up for the added expense of placing the haystacks so far away from their normal feeding ground areas.
Nothing has ever worked. When Old Mother Idaho has a hissy fit, she rules.
“About 10 miles north of town”. Yes this is what I remember. I recall an actual I-15 closure at one point.
Closures happen several times a year on that stretch.
There's a weird fluke in the terrain that must be like the narrow end of a funnel in that area, as the winds become so strong in such a short distance. North or south of it, the winds will be normal and what you would expect.
The roadway is also much lower than the embankments on both sides, and I think that has something to do with it too.
It's sure no fun when caught in it. I've been caught at least once by a dust storm, and once by a snow storm. One is as bad as the other.
I noticed everyone who posted talked about the average winds we get here in Idaho Falls.
The average is actually very hard to determine because there are always many gusts in every wind movement. They can be much stronger, but don't last for more than a few minutes.
As I've mentioned before, there is always some air motion going on here. Idaho Falls is exposed to wind because it lies on open terrain.
As a lifelong resident, there's a rather sharp distinction in my mind between a calm day, breezy day, and a windy day.
While the air here is rarely dead calm, there are days when it is dead calm. They are not typical.
Calm, in my mind, means there is so little wind movement I don't notice any wind at all. But since I'm so accustomed to feeling some sustained wind movement, a calm day could have very slight wind gusts happening all day long.
Breeze to me means anything up to 10 mph sustained winds... About the same air rush a person would get peddling a bicycle at a fast speed. At around 3 mph, a breeze is noticeable to me, but it could be anything from 2 mph to higher than 10 mph.
And a better term for 'breezy' here could be 'gusty'. There are many days when the wind comes in repeated short gusts with periods of calm between them. Windy days have many gusts.
So 'windy' to me is anything above 10 mph up. With lots of gusts.
There are also days with sustained high winds all day, and they can last for several days. These are the least common.
Yesterday was typical of a windy day here. The temps had dropped very low overnight as a passing front moved through, and in the early morning, there was a light skiff of snow that had precipitated from the moisture in the air that was there when the front came through. The teperature drop condensed it into snow.
But it's May now, so even if the day stayed cold, the sun would warm the air past the freezing point. When it did, there would be wind.
The front hadn't completely passed over when the sun came up, so the winds in the early morning were around 15 mph. As the day warmed, the steady wind remained around 15-18 mph, but the gusts were much stronger, as strong as 40 mph or more.
And the gusts brought more light snow with them. The warm air at ground level was churning the cold air higher up as it rose.
When I walked in for a 30-minute exercise session, I felt like I was waling in a ground blizzard. Looking out through the windows as I exercised, I could see the gust stop, the clouds lift, and the air grow calmer. When I came back out, the wind was blowing at approx. 13 mph.
Then, as the tail end of the front finally passed just after dark, this morning I awoke to a breezy day. Warm air is still moving in after pushing the cold air yesterday out, and the wind speed today is around 5 mph.
also
This is the way Idaho Falls really is. To me, the word 'average' doesn't really describe very much about our wind.
There's simply more wind movement all the time here than in Pocatello and some other places in the valley. And this entire region is probably windier than the Treasure Valley, because folks who are here from Boise notice the wind more than the folks who live here.
Since I've lived with it for so long, I find a dead calm day in Idaho Falls is sultry and oppressive in the middle of summer. When a day is 90º in the shade here, our breeze makes 90 feel more like 80 than it does in Boise, even though the actual temps are the same in both cities.
And during the evenings, our breeze also cools the night air down, making a hot night more tolerable.
The constant air movement we have here also keeps the humidity quite low here all year round. A humid day that feels humid is fairly rare here.
Like life is everywhere, our wind is simply one of nature's elements. It should be as anticipated as a move to Florida will be humid or that the darkness in Alaksa will be very long in the winters for anyone who's thinking of moving here.
Last edited by banjomike; 05-10-2022 at 03:13 PM..
I noticed everyone who posted talked about the average winds we get here in Idaho Falls.
The average is actually very hard to determine because there are always many gusts in every wind movement. They can be much stronger, but don't last for more than a few minutes.
As I've mentioned before, there is always some air motion going on here. Idaho Falls is exposed to wind because it lies on open terrain.
As a lifelong resident, there's a rather sharp distinction in my mind between a calm day, breezy day, and a windy day.
While the air here is rarely dead calm, there are days when it is dead calm. They are not typical.
Calm, in my mind, means there is so little wind movement I don't notice any wind at all. But since I'm so accustomed to feeling some sustained wind movement, a calm day could have very slight wind gusts happening all day long.
Breeze to me means anything up to 10 mph sustained winds... About the same air rush a person would get peddling a bicycle at a fast speed. At around 3 mph, a breeze is noticeable to me, but it could be anything from 2 mph to higher than 10 mph.
And a better term for 'breezy' here could be 'gusty'. There are many days when the wind comes in repeated short gusts with periods of calm between them. Windy days have many gusts.
So 'windy' to me is anything above 10 mph up. With lots of gusts.
There are also days with sustained high winds all day, and they can last for several days. These are the least common.
Yesterday was typical of a windy day here. The temps had dropped very low overnight as a passing front moved through, and in the early morning, there was a light skiff of snow that had precipitated from the moisture in the air that was there when the front came through. The teperature drop condensed it into snow.
But it's May now, so even if the day stayed cold, the sun would warm the air past the freezing point. When it did, there would be wind.
The front hadn't completely passed over when the sun came up, so the winds in the early morning were around 15 mph. As the day warmed, the steady wind remained around 15-18 mph, but the gusts were much stronger, as strong as 40 mph or more.
And the gusts brought more light snow with them. The warm air at ground level was churning the cold air higher up as it rose.
When I walked in for a 30-minute exercise session, I felt like I was waling in a ground blizzard. Looking out through the windows as I exercised, I could see the gust stop, the clouds lift, and the air grow calmer. When I came back out, the wind was blowing at approx. 13 mph.
Then, as the tail end of the front finally passed just after dark, this morning I awoke to a breezy day. Warm air is still moving in after pushing the cold air yesterday out, and the wind speed today is around 5 mph.
also
This is the way Idaho Falls really is. To me, the word 'average' doesn't really describe very much about our wind.
There's simply more wind movement all the time here than in Pocatello and some other places in the valley. And this entire region is probably windier than the Treasure Valley, because folks who are here from Boise notice the wind more than the folks who live here.
Since I've lived with it for so long, I find a dead calm day in Idaho Falls is sultry and oppressive in the middle of summer. When a day is 90º in the shade here, our breeze makes 90 feel more like 80 than it does in Boise, even though the actual temps are the same in both cities.
And during the evenings, our breeze also cools the night air down, making a hot night more tolerable.
The constant air movement we have here also keeps the humidity quite low here all year round. A humid day that feels humid is fairly rare here.
Like life is everywhere, our wind is simply one of nature's elements. It should be as anticipated as a move to Florida will be humid or that the darkness in Alaksa will be very long in the winters for anyone who's thinking of moving here.
Good observations and points about local variability.
I can confirm that most of Boise proper isn't particularly windy. I believe this is because much of the city sits in a pocket between a series of benches that step down from the south and the foothills/mountains to the northwest. Going north on I-84 to Boise, the biggest bench is at about the Eisenman Rd exit, then there are a couple more near BOI and then just before the Boise River.
On multiple occasions I've noted how consistently windy it is at the Blacks Creek Rest Area (about 10 miles south of Boise) compared to very little wind in the area between the North End and Eagle.
Good observations and points about local variability.
I can confirm that most of Boise proper isn't particularly windy. I believe this is because much of the city sits in a pocket between a series of benches that step down from the south and the foothills/mountains to the northwest. Going north on I-84 to Boise, the biggest bench is at about the Eisenman Rd exit, then there are a couple more near BOI and then just before the Boise River.
On multiple occasions I've noted how consistently windy it is at the Blacks Creek Rest Area (about 10 miles south of Boise) compared to very little wind in the area between the North End and Eagle.
Yup.
A city in a hole won't be as windy as a city that's exposed.
Especially if a city is surrounded by mountains.
The biggest difference I've seen is Ketchum. Up on the Baldy Mountain ski hill, the wind can be whipping, but down in Ketchum, it will be barely noticeable.
Baldy lives up to its name. There are no big pinnacles or rock ledges on it that can break the wind flow up; it's quite smooth, a perfect for the natural uplift to accelerate as the wind flows over it.
All mountains do accelerate the uplift, but craggy mountains tend to channel the wind into the smoothest places, so the wind get become really fierce in those spots, while the rugged spots are less windy.
A strong updraft on one side of a mountain will create an almost as strong downdraft on the other side, but not always.
The north face of the Grand Teton has a wind channel that's always a real howler on a windy day. The Teton range is so steeply vertical one would think Jackson Hole is sheltered, but to the east of Jackson, the terrain is open, more like the area surrounding Boise. So depending on the wind direction, Jackson Hole can be almost as windy as the mountain range.
Boise is sheltered in all 4 directions. So is Pocatello. And Idaho Falls is exposed in all 4 directions, but not equally exposed.
Last edited by banjomike; 05-10-2022 at 07:06 PM..
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