A cold front moving through the Desert Southwest will kick up high winds Tuesday, leading to an elevated risk of rollovers for truckers.
Winds began increasing Monday in a few areas, including Reno, Nevada, and South Lake Tahoe, California, where gusts came close to 50 mph. Winds will get stronger Tuesday.
The National Weather Service has issued wind advisories across a fairly large region covering southern Nevada, southeastern California, the southern Sierra Nevada, the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys, as well as a large part of Arizona. Most of the advisories are set to expire sometime Tuesday night, but a few don’t end until early Wednesday morning, like those in the Sierra Nevada and sections of southern Nevada.
Gusts will likely reach 45 to 65 mph at times throughout the impact zone, including high-population places such as Las Vegas; Sacramento, California; portions of Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona; in addition to interior parts of San Diego. However, gusts could reach 70 mph in Southern California in the San Diego County deserts and mountains, Coachella Valley and Riverside County Mountains.
Besides potential rollovers, drivers may run into areas of blowing dust, reducing visibility within just a few minutes in some cases.
Major lanes of concern
• Interstate 15 from Barstow, California, to Mesquite, Nevada.
• Interstate 40 from Barstow, California, to the Arizona-New Mexico border.
• Interstate 5 from Palm Springs, California, to just west of Phoenix.
• Interstate 8 from San Diego to just west of Phoenix.
Many drivers may be heading through the high-wind region to get to Southern California, particularly the Ontario freight market. It has the highest amount of available freight compared to anywhere else in the country. The latest FreightWaves Outbound Tender Volume Index (OTVI) tree map above illustrates this because the top spot on this map is always in the upper left-hand corner. OTVI is a moving index measuring the level of electronically offered outbound loads offered by shippers to carriers, and carriers like to go where the freight is.
Click here for more FreightWaves articles by Nick Austin.
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