Wind Advisory I-80 Utah

I'm sitting at Flying J in Tooele, UT. There's a high wind warning in effect, 20-30 mph sustained and gusts to 45. I have a pretty light load, 25,000 lbs. Park it or run it?

What's your experience with winds and your comfort level? What's the forecast for the future? Will you be stuck there tomorrow if the winds are worse?

Decisions you make as the solo driver.

I've only been solo for a month. I've been in some bad weather, but that was my first actual wind advisory. It was not going to get any better, so I just figured I'd take a shot, took it slow. Really wasn't bad. One or two gusts that made my bum clench.

Seems like I saw someone post a chart on here once with like wind speeds and load weights that you could use to help decide what's safe.

Search for wind chart. It's a baseline to start with. There are many many dynamics to think about with wind.

Direction, gust and sustained speed, what your hauling, weight, tandems placement, your comfort level all make a difference.

You are the captain of your ship, if you don't feel safe, shut it down.

Frequently, the winds reduce and subside after midnight. I generally check areas along my route using various apps such as willyweather, windy app, noaa forecasts and others and get a comprehensive forecast of when the winds will die down and what the direction will be. I frequently run at night as well.

Another factor to consider is that while 80 might generally run east west, there are large section that will put you across a west wind, or worse yet diagonally across it.

I just ran 58 over Tehachapi pass from Bakersfield with only 15k in the box. On the Mojave floor it's the same wind speed 20 to 30 with 45 mph gusts. The wind was out of the west and the road goes east except for a few spots. It was manageable for me but others may not have found it so.

As always, this is a tool, and only the start of your decision making process. For me, having run 80 for two years fighting wind, I probably would have attempted it with the available information. I would have also been prepared to "bail out and wait." There are very specific trouble spots that would have given me pause for sure, but that comes with experience.

The bottom line is, nobody but you can decide to stay or go. Wyoming doesn't specify what it considers "light, high profile vehicle" either. If you blow over, you were too light, and too high profile.