Ask anyone from our office or most everyone I know, and they’ll tell you I have been complaining for years about the wind.
Like many of you, I grew up in southwest Minnesota and have spent my entire life in these here parts, but I don’t remember when the wind has influenced or ruined so many outdoor activities.
It seems the days of a nice breeze have long been forgotten.
Just off the top of my head, in the past 10 years the wind has damaged the shingles on our house to the point they had to be replaced.
We have crank-out windows, and one afternoon while the windows on the east side of the house were cranked open, the wind came up and ripped three of them off the house.
One evening the wind came up and blew our gas grill over and broke the dials off and dented the hood.
We proudly fly the flag at our house. and we go through about five flags a year due to wind damage.
It’s not uncommon to return the neighbor’s garbage or recycling bins because the wind decided to move them down the street.
Not long ago the wind decided to litter the field east of Blue Mound Avenue with recyclables from homes in the Veterans Addition.
Our wind chime spends more time in the prone position then hanging because the wind causes a nonstop clanging rather than a pleasant sound of relaxing chimes.
You don’t see a lot of walkers, runners or folks enjoying a nice bicycle ride on one of our many windy days.
We all understand and tolerate the wind chill in January but not so much in April.
Things are looking up — or maybe I should say the wind speed should be trending downward as March is the windiest month of the year according to a quick Goggle search.
The same search surprised me a bit with information that Minnesota ranks 17th as far as windy states go.
Alaska tops the list at just shy of 22 mph mean wind speed at 328 ft. Minnesota is just 2 mph behind that at 19 mean speed at 328 feet. By the way, Illinois, home of the Windy City (otherwise known as Chicago), didn’t even make the top 20 list.