It was a stormy night...

[algilson]

So, let me set this up. It's 1:30 am, and the kids (6&3) are stuck to me like glue. The wind is blowing a constant 25 mph, with gusts to 50 mph along with pounding rain and flashes of lightning. Now that I can't sleep because of the kids, I started thinking to myself, "self, I wonder how strong that wind would have to be to flip this trailer on its side". So, here's how my mind wandered in the night.

I'm not an engineer, and I don't know how high or low the center of gravity is in this trailer, so this could be tough to calculate. Does anyone have a rough guesstimate as to what it would take to flip a Rockwood 8313SS with both slides out, and stabilizers down onto it's side? I started thinking about weight distribution, so let's put me (200 lbs) on the opposite side of the trailer that the wind is hitting. Oh, and I'm on the kids bed in the back of the trailer, which is on a slide that's hanging out the side of the trailer opposite of the wind. The wind is hitting straight on into the side of the trailer. There's no trees to break the wind. What if the sliders were in and the stabilizers were up? Can you tell that I rolled the scenario around a bit? And, what answer do you tell the three year old?

Anyone hazard a guess? 100 mph?

[NWJeeper]

I would more suggest you get some good sleeping pills And give the kids each a Benadryl

[rockwood06]

We were in a Nor/Easter in Ocean City MD about three years ago and thought we were going to tip at any time. the storm was all during the night. The next morning after the storm I check the camper out, all of the jacks came loose and were hardly touching the ground. In order to get out of the campground one had to have a 4-wheel drive vehicle because the water was too high for a standard car or small truck.
The wind was blowing the rain sideways and the friends we were camping with had water coming in there camper threw there refrigerator access panel.
Our rig was doing some ROCKIN, It was scary.....

[KyDan]

Spent the night of July 4 in a Walmart parking lot in Garden City
Kansas. 2 bands of thunder storms rolled thru. We were hitched
and no jacks down. The trailer rocked a lot. I also wondered what
it would take to blow us over.

We chatted with another couple earlier in the trip who live in
Texas. Their trailer had blown over in their back yard earlier
this year. Insurance totaled it.
Scary stuff.
I'm sure I have no idea what wind speed it takes to tip one
but anything over 60 is gonna be in the neighborhood is
my guess.

[acadianbob]

There are undoubtedly many variables as to how much wind a trailer can take. A big one is the direction of the wind. From the front or the back, I wouldn't worry too much. The side would be much different. We were camped on the shore of Lake Superior when a system came through. We had a night a gale force winds. The trailer shook a little but we did fine. The wind however was from the rear so that helped a lot. My guess is the trailers will take a lot. Think about towing at 60 mph and having a 25 mph crosswind. That's a lot of pressure. But we all do it without problems. We are also often protected somewhat by trees in the campsite. (As long as they don't blow down on you!) My guess is that it would take an exceptionally strong storm/wind to blow over a trailer. That being said, we all know these storms happen!

[KyDan]

Somebody should google it.
I bet there are insurance companies with data or the national
weather service.
There's bound to be some info about this issue on the web.

[mjones12]

I don't know the answer to your question, but I can tell you that I have camped in winds high enough that I went out and hooked the trailer to the truck before going to bed. Figured if it blew the trailer away, it would have to take the truck with it. Put the safety chains on, too.