NEW WINDS SPEED RECORD HAS BEEN RECORDED

Written by: Brian Neudorff

For 75 years, Mount Washington in New Hampshire has been in the record books for recording the highest official wind speed ever recorded on land on Earth, with a measurement of 231 mph back on April 12th, 1934, or at least they thought they did. It appears that the last 14 years of that 75 year record belong to a new location.

This week, scientists at the World Meteorological Organization confirmed a new world-record wind speed of 253 mph. The record wind gust was measured on April 10, 1996, on Barrow Island, Australia, during Tropical Cyclone Olivia. I don't know why it took the WMO almost 14 years to confirm this record but after reviewing the data and testing the instrumentation to make sure it was properly working and calibrated the new record belongs to the Barrow Island.

Tropical cyclones are Australian equivalents to Atlantic hurricanes and Pacific typhoons. If Olivia was a hurricane in the Atlantic it would have been a Category 5. Although Mt. Washington no longer holds the record for the highest land wind speed ever recorded it can still boast that the 231 mph reading remains the highest on record in the Northern and Western Hemispheres.

More reaction from Mt. Washington in this article: Wind speed record has been blown away