Welcome to the windy season.
Here in the Red River Valley, the weather from March through May tends to be the most consistently windy of the year. There are two basic reasons for this. To begin with, the pressure gradient tends to be tighter in spring. This time of year, southern latitudes begin to warm. Temperatures occasionally reach into the 80s and 90s across the southern and central Great Plains. Meanwhile, cold temperatures linger across snow-covered regions further north. As the temperature gradient increases across latitudes, weather systems get stronger and windier.
The other reason has to do with the soil. When the snow melts, it reveals a vast expanse of black soil. Until the fields are covered in crops, the black dirt is an excellent absorber of solar radiation. The hot ground creates turbulence and mixing of the air vertically. As stronger winds from higher up in the air mix down to the ground, we get very windy conditions, particularly on sunny afternoons
