Newfoundland Wind
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Eighteen wheelers, tractor-trailers, semis, big rigs: as they barrel down the highway, it seems like nothing can threaten these massive trucks. But there are places where even the kings of the road must bow down before the weather. Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow for The Weather Notebook and today we hear from commentator Dave Karlotski about such a place.

"I was in Newfoundland a couple of summers ago when I got a ride from a trucker who educated me about the Newfoundland wind. He was a native Newfie himself who'd been trucking on and off the island for decades. We were driving the last dozen miles down to the ferry when he pointed to a diner on the side of the road with a windsock flying over it. It looked casual enough, but it actually marked the point of no return: in bad weather, the wind that blew over the spit of land between the diner and the port could toss a truck right off the road.

Storms rolling up the Atlantic coast find little to slow them down on Newfoundland's smooth, treeless plateau, and the first place they hit is that exposed southwest corner of the island where the mainland ferry leaves from. If that windsock was flying straight out, he told me, the truckers wouldn't go another inch; the ferry just had to wait for them. In borderline weather they'd drive their trucks very slowly along the slanted shoulder of the road so the trucks would be tipped into the wind and less likely to capsize.

He told me with relish about one storm and a Texan truck driver who wouldn't listen to them; the Texan figured he'd seen all kinds of big winds back home, and probably thought the Newfoundlanders just wanted to stop at the diner for coffee. An hour later, he came back to the diner himself on foot."

That was wandering commentator Dave Karlotski, himself blown by the four winds. The Weather Notebook is underwritten by Subaru, the beauty of all wheel drive. Major funding is provided by the National Science Foundation.