We are introduced to a new character, Fen, who lives on the beach with the native wildlife while her family lives in a lighthouse nearby. Curious why she prefers the beach to her family’s home. She sees Rowan, supported by driftwood, caught in the waves by the shore. The ocean is rough because there is a storm coming. Fen battles the sea to retrieve Rowan, and the wind to run to the lighthouse for help. When she crests the hill to the lighthouse she is knocked over by the intense winds. 

When I read this, it was hard for me to imagine winds so strong that they could knock a person to the ground. I know it’s possible, tornadoes for instance. But I’ve never experienced anything even close to this. The strongest winds I’ve experienced recently were in Scotland.

I went to Ireland and Scotland in August of last year for my 30th birthday. With my best friend and our moms, we road tripped around the entirety of both countries. It was incredible. The weather was surprisingly great other than a few hours of two or three days in Scotland. One of these days we went to the famous Fairy Pools on the Isle of Skye. We had to walk/hike down into the valley of the mountains and the wind in this valley was intense. People were huddling together, holding onto each other, hair whipping and jackets bubbling. The tall grasses were basically lying down flat. But it wasn’t so strong that we were in danger of falling over, if anything it was fun. At least my group was smiling and laughing.

Anyway, after reading about Fen being knocked off her feet by the wind, I became curious about how strong wind has to be to do that to a person. I found a mathematical equation given by ABC 7 Chicago (if anyone knows wind it’s the Chicagoans, right?). This equation is a rough estimate because there is a lot it doesn’t consider, but it is a decent approximation that will satiate my curiosity.

I calculated that it would take a wind speed of about 62 mph to knock me over. I looked up a weather archive of the wind speeds in the Isle of Skye and found that the gusts that day were up to 31 mph—literally half the speed it would take to knock me over. So basically, I haven’t experienced winds even close to this speed. 

I like that I now have a frame of reference for wind speeds. It’s something that you hear people talk about in anticipation of storms or windy days, but the number meant absolutely nothing to me until this moment. Now I can judge wind speeds by how close they are to knocking me over. I like that. 

All this to say, Fen was probably facing winds greater than 60 mph. 

P.S. There is an article that has almost everything you could ever want to know about wind on National Geographic’s website. I’ll link it with the references if you’re curious!