It's not your imagination, Lake Tahoe has seen higher than average wind speeds this spring and summer

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - If you've been thinking this spring and so far this summer has been windier than normal, you're right! Between April 1 and June 30 this year, the average wind speed at the Tahoe Valley Airport has been 7.60 miles per hour (factoring in 24 hours a day and non-wind days). This is the highest average for this period since 2000 when that average was 8.30 miles per hour.

The wind is caused when gases move from high-pressure areas to low-pressure areas. And the bigger the difference between the pressures, the faster the air will move from the high to the low pressure. That rush of air is the wind we experience.

"We've had more low-pressure areas passing by in the spring and first half of summer so that will act to kick up the wind speeds," said National Weather Service Warning Coordination Meteorologist in Reno, Chris Smallcomb. "Also as a result of that pattern, while we've had our warm periods, we haven't yet had that extreme searing heat we've seen the last couple of summers."

Smallcomb said people in Reno were commenting on the wind increases there as well, so the reports he ran for Reno this spring showed the same things as South Lake Tahoe - above normal wind speeds compared to most springs back to the late 1990s.

So far, the big ridge of high pressure that often accompanies northern Nevada and Northern California heatwaves has been suppressed to the south. The Pacific Northwest saw extreme and deadly heat in the summer of 2021, and the same low-pressure areas affecting wind here at home are also giving them precipitation and cooler temperatures. There is really no cause for prolonged low or high pressure, it is the natural variability in annual weather patterns.

Overall there has actually been a long-term trend down in winds during the three-month period, said Smallcomb.