Yesterday the Sacramento area had a very intense storm with winds over 45mph. My normal commute (to work) is completly flat and I regularly get 52-53mpg even when temps drop into the 30s. Yesterday the wind was so bad that my mpg dropped to 38.7mpg after 76 miles of driving. The wind was so strong that telephone wires were waving on either side of the road with over 4 feet of movement! Tree banches flew across my path and fences were down in evey neiborhood I passed from Lincoln to Fairfield! The high winds even moved or upturned all of our large patio furniture and gas BBQ. So the moral of the story is.... Pay attention to wind speed when calculating your mpg because even small winds can play a part if they hit you at a bad angle.
This is true and not just head winds but side winds can have you using extra energy to overcome the side loads.
But tail winds are the BEST! In those winds yesterday, I had a good stretch with the winds pushing me and I was on battery power only (at 70 mph) for what seemed like forever.
Re: But tail winds are the BEST! That would have been nice. My roomate drove part of the same route in his 2006 Duramax Diesel and he sai dhe was running 5-7psi (turbo) higher than normal to cut through the headwinds.
No kidding . . . I was playing around in the windstorm yesterday. On my way out to the airport, I had a constant 40 MPH tail wind. Nice, smooth, very quiet ride at 65 MPH and I was getting over 80 MPG. Then, right after the 90 degree turn in I-5 a couple of miles before the airport, I hit a major backup caused by three big rigs which were blown over within a mile of each other. It took an hour to go the rest of the two miles from where the backup started. this is what my MFD looked like just before the airport exit. Unfortunately I did not reset the consumption screen right as the backup started. The second image is from a trip we took driving up highway 99 from Sacramento a few months ago. It's slightly uphill, but we had a constant 30 to 35 MPH tail wind. I did reset the consumption screen as we left on the trip. Yep, wind can mess with your MPGs, but creeping along at two miles per hour for an hour or so with a 50 to 60 MPH side wind and with the need for defogging the windows can really beat it to hell.
Wow, 3 overturned tractor trailers. We encountered one overturned tractor trailer on I-80... it'd fallen down and was blocking all three lanes, but we (and a bunch of other people) managed to scoot by on the shoulder (with police approval). I'm sure if our timing had been slightly off, we would have gotten stuck as they brought out the crane or whatever they do to get it righted. I actually shouldn't be surprised at all the overturns. As we crossed the causeway from Davis, I had a semi in front of me, and when the wind gusted I could literally see the trailer lean!! Scared me enough to just stay behind and not worry about getting around. I was glad to see, however, that everyone was driving so respectfully at around 35-40mph, or perhaps they saw the same thing and didn't dare pass either.
That was quite a windstorm, wasn't it? We felt the effects here, too. I heard reports of many people without power in the San Francisco area.
...and here I was going to complain that the drip in temps into the single digits reduced my mileage from 58.2 to 55.8. I think I'll bite my tongue.
During the morning portion of my commute at around 8am there was only one trailer down and it was on the Woodland side of the I-5 causeway. My usually route consists of: Country roads to Hwy 99 Hwy 99 to I-5 (towards Woodland) Hwy 113 (from Woodland to Davis) I-80 (to Fairfield) Prius Envy, your consumption screen looked just like mine yesterday morning. Only one 10th off. lol On the way home the winds had died down considerably but with the rain I still needed to use the defroster so I gave up on recovering much mpg. I ended the day at 42mpg. I also did not want to try any hypermiling antics in such weather. It's hard enough for people to drive safely and they don't need my silly butt making things worse by trying to save fuel. Glad to see you suffered no harm.
Nah . . . I was out in it on purpose . . . for fun. Sacramento has such boring weather 99.9999 percent of the time. I grew up with it and feel cheated in every weather aspect except sunshine. I chase the rare thunderstorm which comes through the area. If I lived in hurricane country, I'd go toward the eye. Tornado country? I'd be chasing them down. Earthquakes? I DO go there to feel the aftershocks. Blizzards? I'm a happy boy when trapped in a cabin in the Tahoe area during a great snow storm.
Had to comment on this - My wife and I lived in Florida, our WHOLE live up until the age of 25 and 24. Then last year, we moved to SoCal. We MISS weather. We used to go w/our brother in law and my wife's sister in their jeep and drive to the beaches whenever we had hurricanes and tropical storms. With the "rain" we had here over the last few days, it felt like home. That being said, "weather" is the ONLY thing we miss from FL after being here 13 months.
