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Once as I was going home from work, the sky was perfectly clear above me and to the north. As I came to the top of a pass, I could see a wall of clouds charging up the canyon towards me from the SW. I stopped at a pullout to watch. My impression was that the cold front was approaching at 200 or maybe 300 miles per hour. ( the wind was trying to keep up, It blew like crazy for several minutes)
My question is: How fast can a cold front move?
Thanks, I like your website.
Donald N.
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Awesome! I'm glad you like the site! You know, sometimes when you are out there, it feels like those clouds are just sailing by you doesn't it?
Individual storms can and do have forward speeds of over 60 mph, as fast or faster than a car. You see a lot of this in the midwest with fast moving supercells, hence why you should never try to outrun a tornado no matter what kind of fancy car you might have.
Cold fronts can be marked in the sky certainly by clouds on the increase along with gusty winds for several minutes after its passage. An estimate for a typical cold front forward speed is around 20 to 30 mph. An extreme case though can have a front moving at 50 to 60 mph!!! On top of that, cold fronts can have gusty winds which can go anywhere from 0 mph to above 80 mph!!! Usually that doesn't happen, but wind gusts are there for sure.
Take a look at some data from the Tax Day cold front of April 2002. We must thank Dr. Jason Shafer a U of U Alum and now a professor at Lyndon State College for this useful information on that storm.
Answered by KSL Meteorologist Dina Freedman
