Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
March, April are region's windiest months
Flags outside the Roosevelt County Courthouse, and elsewhere, better get ready - the season's windiest days are upon us.
Wind: It's good for turbines, bad for your eyes, and somewhere in between for farmers.
And whatever your opinion of the wind, there's no debating it's blowing and a-going out there as we approach spring.
National Weather Service Meteorologist Daniel Porter said the region's strongest winds each year occur in March and April - an average of 12.5 mph.
Porter said that based on data compiled from 1985 to 2005 in Tucumcari, the closest area with existing wind speed data.
While 12.5 mph may not sound fast, Porter noted that's an average of all hours of the day.
"Actually, when you average it out to miles an hour, it's actually a pretty good clip," he said.
One thing you don't need a weatherman to tell you, according to Portales Optometrist Charles Brooks, is the damage winds can inflict on the eyes.
Eyes can be abnormally dry in windy weather, and sometimes "reflex tearing," a sudden burst of tears, can occur to make up for the lack of moisture, Brooks said.
He added that much of the more serious wind-related eye problems are a combination of sun and wind.
"Sometimes if the eyes are exposed to chronic amounts of dryness and sun exposure, you will have calluses build on the surface of the eye. If it is exclusive to the white part of the eye, we call that a pinguecula," he said. "In some cases, the exposure can extend into the clear tissue, what's called the cornea, and that we call a pterygium."
The best defense? Eye protection and lots of blinking, according to Brooks.
"Remember to blink, because blinking stimulates the tearing process. I say it a lot: 'Think blink and you'll be better.'"
For agriculture professionals, whether wind is good or bad is all a question of moderation, according to D'Llaynn Bruce, district conservationist for the Natural Resource Conservation Service in Clovis and Portales.
"I think there's kind of a happy medium. A lot of the high mileage wind that we get, like the 50-mile-an-hour winds and stuff, they do cause soil erosion, but we need some wind to help pollinate crops," she said.
She added that many farmers are currently caring for winter wheat crops, which are harvested in June and July.
Winds today are expected to reach 12 mph, with the highest winds this week appearing on Sunday at 28 mph, according to Weather.com.
