The wind has been very strong the last couple of days with gusts around 30 to 35 mph on both Sunday, April 30 and Monday, May 1. Here’s a look at some of the peak gusts from Monday:

The reason the wind has been so strong is because of something we call a “tight pressure gradient.” There’s an extremely low pressure area across the Northeast and Canada with tightly-packed isobars (or lines of equal pressure). Anytime these lines are really close together, it lets us know that it will be very windy. This tight pressure gradient is caused by the difference in the air pressure between the high pressure and low pressure.