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Cyclone Olivia at Barrow Island

WMO's maximum 3-second surface wind gust: 113.2 m/s at Barrow Island, Australia, at 1055 UTC on 10 April 1996, during Cyclone Olivia.

Also known as Barrow Island gust, Cyclone Olivia
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Wind speed

Published as 113.2 m/sPublished as 113.2 m/sPublished as 113.2 m/s

WMO maximum 3-second surface wind gust, 1055 UTC, 64 m above ground, Barrow Island, 20°49'S 115°23'E.

OfficialWorld Meteorological Organization (opens source in a new tab)

In context

  • 3.9× a cheetah's timed top speedSourced · Cheetah, 29 m/s. Sharp 1997, mean of three timed runs over 201.2 m
  • 1.2 football fields a secondConstant · American football field, 100 yd (91.44 m)
  • London to New York in 13 h 40 minConstant · London to New York, 5,570 km great-circle

Worked out from the sourced figure above, which stays the ranked number.

Mechanism

Why it's so fast

Cyclone Olivia at Barrow Island is air moving from higher pressure toward lower pressure. The list says whether the figure is a gust or another extreme, and it does not mix those definitions.

  1. A pressure difference

    The tighter and deeper the low, the faster the air moves to fill it. Terrain and the storm's structure decide what an anemometer on the ground actually records.

  2. The definition on the list

    Cyclone Olivia at Barrow Island's entry names the interval. A three-second gust and a one-minute wind are not the same claim.

Nearby on this list: Mount Washington gust.

Provenance

Every measurement

Claimed, measured and official figures side by side, each with its source. The ranked figure is marked.

  1. 408km/h253mph113.2m/s220knRanked figure

    WMO maximum 3-second surface wind gust, 1055 UTC, 64 m above ground, Barrow Island, 20°49'S 115°23'E.

    Official
    World Meteorological Organization (opens source in a new tab)

Reference

Specs

Event
Cyclone Olivia
Place
Barrow Island, Australia
Quantity
3-second surface gust
Height
64 m

Context

Background

The World Meteorological Organization's table of extremes, dated 25 July 2025, lists the maximum 3-second surface wind gust as 113.2 m/s (253 mph; 220 kt) at 1055 UTC on 10 April 1996 at Barrow Island, Australia, 64 metres above the ground. The WMO archive map for that record prints the same speed, the same day, and a formal review in 2012.

Courtney and colleagues, in the 2012 evaluation, print the instrument value as 113.3 m/s (408 km/h) and say it superseded 103.3 m/s at Mount Washington in April 1934. The ranked figure is the WMO archive's 113.2 m/s. The paper's 113.3 is the instrument reading before the archive's rounding, and it is not a second row. Mount Washington's 103.3 m/s is the next row on this gust list. Sustained winds, including the 95 m/s marks for Hurricane Patricia and Typhoon Nancy, are a different quantity and stay on the sustained-wind list.

Spot a wrong number?

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