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Ask the weather guys: What causes strong winds?

The wind is simply air in motion, flowing from high atmospheric pressures to low pressures. Moving anything requires a force. The recent strong winds weâ??ve been having are due to a strong pressure gradient force. A pressure gradient is a measure of how much pressure changes over distance. So, when large pressure changes exist over a small distance, the pressure gradient force is large. Strong winds almost always result from large pressure gradients.