High Winds?

Can anyone tell me appromimately how many mph the winds must be for the park to shut down its coasters?

Well last season on Mother's Day when I was at SFGAm they had wind gusts of up to 40 mph. Because of the wind they were never able to open most of the coasters.

Batman was the only coaster that was able to operate the whole day, and Iron Wolf and V2 were only open for about a hour at one point. The rest were closed all day due to the high winds, and the park even shut down early.

So somewhere between 0-50 mph winds most coasters can't operate in I would assume. Except Batman which after that day I believe can operate in any winds or weather.

Edit: Remembered it was last year and not 2 years ago. *** Edited 9/18/2004 4:26:47 PM UTC by CoasterDude316***

We had a similar situation at SFA on opening weekend this year,I went on april 4th & only two coasters (Roar & Wild one) were operating the whole day & like SFGRAM 2 years earlier the park closed about an hour & a half early due in part to low attendance.

It was only 50 degrees out that day & with the high wind gusts it made it feel more like 40 degrees most of the day.

hi,
The first fright fest i went to was at Geauga lake several years ago, b4 6flgs.. the temp was like 40 degrees with high winds and occasional sleet. oddly, they had the Serial Thriller running, but not the double loop of the Ragging Wolf Bobs,,, ( they said due to the cold, if they didn't have a full load the train would not make it through the course. that made sense, grease does not work as it should in colder than normal temps...

As the saying goes, it all depends. Different coasters have different limits. Different causes too. Sometimes it's structural limitations, other times it's the possibility of valleying.

I believe The Windjammer at Knott's would stall when the winds would reach a gusty 2 or 3 mph. No wonder it's gone now.

I you coughed Windjammer would stall.

^^hahaha! :)

There is no rule for all parks, or even for every ride. Cedar Point has rules about speed and wind direction for many of their coasters. Sky Ride I think is first to close.

As Jeff mentioned, the direction it's going in is really what matters. Take last night for example, TTD was running pretty consistently despite the 30 mph gusts. Dragster's usually one of the more finicky when it comes to wind, but it was blowing in a direction that didn't cause problems.

When i went to gadv the 2nd day it was open last year we got to the park and all the coasters were closed cause of the wind. They eventually started to open some of them each at diiferent points in the day as the winds died down. But still during testing batman the ride valleyed.

I think the park would have to make that call as the sisutation comes up. Coasters are built pretty solid and I doubt gust would be strong enough to stop a train from going! Most coaster trains go over 45mph anyways so I don't think they would be stopped.

It's not as simple as that Crashmando.

High winds,especially a head wind tend to cause more wind resistance which causes the train to lose speed dramatically.

If a train going 45 mph suddenly encounters a head wind gusting at say 35 mph it could in effect reduce the forward speed of the train down to 10 mph thus causing it to valley.

Delta Flyer at Great america had some formula for closing...something like sustained winds over 20 mph for over 5 minutes or gusts greater than 45.