Many of you wrote us on social media noticing the wind picked up this weekend and asking why that happened. Yes, it was sort of related to the remnants of Ian moving closer to our area but not for the reasons you might be thinking.
Around a high pressure center, the wind moves clockwise; around a low pressure center, the wind moves counter clockwise. This weekend there was a high pressure center positioned north of us with the remnants of Ian (a center of low pressure) positioned to our east. As drawn on the map above, when you look at how the wind is moving around those two pressure centers, its easy to see why the wind sped up a bit in our region this weekend. We are getting the airflow off two systems instead of one! The air converging between the two pressure centers can also cause the wind to speed up as it exits the area where its all getting funneled together. Wind gusts in our area topped out between 20 mph and 30 mph - certainly enough to notice but not to do any damage or cause concern.
