By Meteorologist Joe Martucci
No, it wasn’t just you thinking the wind was howling this winter. This was the windiest winter since 2010-2011, and featured the second highest wind gust on record.
At Atlantic City International Airport, the average sustained wind speed from December through February (climatological winter) was 9.7 mph, according to the Iowa Environmental Mesonet. During the winter of 2010-2011, that number was 10.3 mph.
It’s not just the airport. Toms River (8.1 mph) was the windiest since 2010-2011. Meanwhile, Lower Township, at Cape May County Airport, was the breeziest since the winter of 2017-2018 (9.0 mph), according to the Mesonet. The top wind gust all winter was 71 mph at Atlantic City International, which occurred Feb. 16. That was the second strongest gust during climatological winter since records began in 1944.
The breezy weather lasted beyond climatological winter. Atlantic and Cape May counties had the most wind advisories or tied for the most issued by the National Weather Service this year up to March 14. (A wind advisory is issued when wind gusts are forecast to hit 46 to 57 mph, or steady winds will be 31 to 39 mph).
Although wind speeds this past winter were more significant than in recent years, they were still within the normal range for the period of record. Similar to temperature trends, it was ultimately a seasonable winter for wind speeds.
Since the 1970s, winds have gotten slower at Atlantic City International Airport, according to the Iowa Environmental Mesonet. The winds we felt in the winter of ’24-’25 were calmer than what was normal before the 1980s. Back in the middle of the last century, winter winds usually blew faster than 11 mph. That’s about 20% stronger than the winds we have now.
It’s not just ACY that has lighter winds these days. I checked two other airports with long records. At Monmouth Executive Airport in Wall Township, the winds have been slowing down little by little over the last few decades. But at Millville Municipal Airport, where they started keeping track just a few years after Atlantic City, the winds have dropped significantly since the late 1990s.
In Millville, the sharp decline can be explained. In 1999, the weather equipment was moved from the eastern side of the airport to its current location on the western side, according to NOAA. There is an area of trees about 350 feet south of there. While they meet the standard practice of being at least 100 feet away from trees, this still likely weakens southerly winds as they contact the anemometer equipment used to measure wind speeds.
At ACY Airport, there’s no clear year in the data that shows the weather equipment moved and caused lower wind speeds. The biggest drop seems to have been in 1978.
The airport moved its equipment in 1968 and 1995, but the wind speeds didn’t really change much before or after those years. However, there was no location change then, according to NOAA. There was no major equipment change, either. I asked the National Weather Service for an explanation but could not find one. Monmouth Executive Airport’s weather station also doesn’t have any equipment or location explanation for the lower winds.
There is research supporting the idea that winds have been getting weaker in recent decades in the Northeast, away from the beach towns.
“We show that surface wind speeds have declined by 5-15% over almost all continental areas in the northern mid-latitudes, and that strong winds have slowed faster than weak winds,” stated Robert Vautard, research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in a 2010 research article. The article looked at the period from 1979 to 2008.
Vautard argues that a combination of reforestation and urbanization has played a large role in this. To a lesser extent, a weaker jet stream – the river of strong winds about 30,000 feet high that separates two air masses – did this, too.
Urbanization makes sense. Atlantic County has grown a lot – 56% more people since 1970, according to the United States Census. Monmouth County, where the executive airport is, grew by 39%.
The forest idea works, too. Around the late 1970s, when the winds started slowing down, the Pinelands National Reserve was created. This stopped people from building there, so the forest got thicker. Thicker trees block the wind and slow it down. Atlantic City Airport isn’t in the Pinelands, but it’s close enough that it might matter.
Even so, this winter was pretty windy. There were 11 days when the wind stayed above 15 mph this winter.
The last time it was windier was back in 1991-1992.
However, in the 1960s and 1970s winter would have been the calmest season of the whole year. Even in the 2000s, you would consider the season’s breeze average.
Similar to this past winter’s temperatures, which were the coldest in 10 years, the wind was noteworthy, but in the grand scheme of things, similar to what we used to see. Mother Nature must have had nostalgia for winters past this season.
Joe Martucci, a Certified Broadcast Meteorologist and Digital Meteorologist, is the President and Director of Meteorology for Cup A Joe Weather and Drone. You can connect with him at cupajoe.live.
