Can a wind blow so strong to knock you off your feet?

Can wind blow me away?

• This is going to sound kind of silly. But a few months away it was a pretty windy day. I was walking home from school and I was in a place that's high up and not very enclosed. A big gust of wind took me off my feet and blew me down the street. It was so scary and embarrassing, haha. I'm over it now, but today it is also pretty windy and I get really nervous when I hear the wind. I got to walk to school later on. I was wondering, we have 40km/h winds that are gusting to 90km then by the aftertoon it will be 50. Can that blow me away? Or was that a total fluke? Thanks for any replies. Page

• Answer:

  Hey, I was in the Joplin tornado, and very fast wind can blow people away. Then again, this was an F5 tornado that also picked up semi trucks and threw them at buildings, so it was an extreme situation. The wind you're talking about is not going to carry you away but it can make it harder to walk, especially against the wind. I would be more worried that strong winds would make an object fly through the air and hit you. If a storm has damaging winds, you should take shelter just in case.