driving in strong wind

Talk to the drivers coming in to the Truck stop at the pumps? That is the best Intel you can get in your situation.

 

Winds over Sherman normally aren't near as bad as over Elk. If you wait for them to die completely, you'll still be sittin' there come spring. I've been on Elk w/ an empty trailer (1000 lbs in a 48 footer) when the signs said 75+ and did not get blown over. I was driving west, and had the left side tires in the dirt to the left of the left shoulder, but I made it to an underpass & parked w/ the back of the trailer into the wind for a few hours, 'til they dropped a bit before I went on. Heard later it was gusting over 85 that night, and was probably still 45-50 when I left. The 45-50 was OK, the 75+ not so much...

 

Do you feel comfortable doing it? If so, then go for it. If not, then sit tight. Don't listen to people that tell you that you'll be fine because if something does go wrong, they won't be the ones that have to deal with it.

With that being said...If it was me, I would go.

 

I just checked the "classic maps" section of weather.com and looked at the wind map. Looks like a "go" to me for Wyoming. The low has passed to the eastern part of the state and is headed east.

 

Now that's what you call some strong wind to lift a trl up like that.Time to park it.

 

One thing should be mentioned about driving a van in strong side winds: if you are loaded heavy that doesn't always equate to being more stable in the wind. One type of heavy load that I'd park in a heartbeat in strong sidewinds is tall rolls of paper, like having 5 rolls of paper weighing 45,000 lbs (9000 lbs per roll). Those rolls are 6-8 feet tall, so the center of gravity is high. They are loaded on the trailer usually 2 to the front and 3 in the back, on nonskid material laid on the floor, and secured with load straps. But I can tell you that they can and will shift.

One of my greatest challenges dealing with side winds was hauling such a load of 5 rolls from Mississippi to LA. Early in the run I drove through a construction zone where it went down to one lane on the freeway and then crossed over to the other side so you had one lane of traffic each way. On the crossover they hadn't made a nice smooth road surface, right as you made the turn to start the crossover with 40 mph recommended speed the road surface tilted dramatically, causing the trailer to go from leaning strongly to the right to violently being thrown into a lean to the left. I could feel that the load had shifted, but at that point with a sealed trailer there wasn't much I could do. The trailer had a left side lean of about 4 inches after that crossover.

The next day we got into strong north winds, wanting to push that left side lean even more. We never passed another truck, no matter how slow, because getting into the passing lane meant going up and over the crown of the road (the crown that drains rain water from the center of a two lane road). Getting into the passing lane would make it lean even more. We had to keep behind all the slow trucks the entire way in the wind.

 

Driving in a cross wind is a skill akin to being at the helm of a sailboat on a "reach". In a sailboat you are constantly having to adjust the helm (rudder) to compensate for how much wind is hitting the sail and causing you to heel over. It's the same when driving in a side wind, you need to be fairly active with the steering wheel to feel how much you need to compensate for the wind in order to maintain driving a straight line. In both cases having a death grip on the steering wheel or helm will cause you to get pushed around by the wind, you need to have soft hands and arms and feel the responsiveness to get the knack.

 

And FORGET you even have cruise control!