IWM 2104: Agricultural Meteorology and

Climate Change

Topic: Measurement of Winds

Dr. Khalid Mahmud

Associate Professor
Dept. of Irrigation and Water Management
Bangladesh Agricultural University
 Wind and its significance
▪ Wind is a three-dimensional ( e.g., two horizontal and vertical
components) vector quantity, which is fully determined when
knowing both its components: direction and speed.

▪ For most operational meteorological purposes, the vertical

component is ignored, surface wind is practically considered as a
two-dimensional vector.

▪ Wind plays an important role in crop evapotranspiration and

thus determines crop water use.

▪ The measurement of wind is thus necessary for studying the

crop growth as well as for other purposes
 Sites for wind speed and direction
measurement
▪Wind measurement sites should be in an open, level location,
where the distance between the anemometer and any
obstruction is at least 10 times the height of the obstruction

▪Wind sensors are located usually on an open mast or tower

(usually at 10 metres height above the ground surface), to
minimize frictional effects near the ground

▪Wind measurement is also done at lower levels (e.g., special

test sites or experimental sites); for agricultural purposes, wind
is measured at 2 m height from ground
Conversion of units of wind speed

▪ meters per second (m/s),

▪ kilometers per hour (km/h),
▪ miles per hour (mph),
▪ feet per second (ft./s) and
▪ knots (kt).
 1. Measurement of wind speed

▪ An anemometer is a device for measuring wind speed, and is a

common weather station instrument.

▪ The term is derived from the Greek word anemos, meaning

wind.

▪ Anemometers are of different types-

▪ Cup Anemometers
▪ Propeller Anemometers
▪ Pressure-tube Anemometer
▪ Sonic Anemometer
▪ Thermal Anemometer
 Cup Anemometer
▪ A cup anemometer has three or four cups mounted
symmetrically around a freewheeling vertical axis or a shaft.

▪ Dr. John Thomas Romney Robinson, an astronomer in

Nothern Ireland, invented the first cup anemometer in 1846.

▪ It had four hemispherical cups. Each cup was fixed on one

end of four arms that were mounted at equal angles (90°) to
each other on the vertical shaft
 Cup Anemometer
▪ In 1926, the Canadian John Patterson developed the three-
cup anemometer(e.g., three cups located 120 degrees apart
mounted on a vertical shaft) that can response to the gusty
winds more quickly and produce higher aerodynamic torque
than the four-cup anemometer

▪ According to research findings, the three-cup anemometer

has been found to have an error of less than 3% up to 60
mph (97 km/h).

▪ The cups are conventionally made of brass, but in recent

years cups are made of light aluminum alloy or carbon fiber
thermo-plastic have become the common, allowing significant
reductions in weight.
3-cups anemometer
4-cups anemometer
Working principle of the cup Anemometer
▪ The wind pressure ( also called drag force) of the open face
of the cup (e.g., concave side of the cup) is greater than that
of the smooth conical or hemispherical opposite face (e.g.,
convex side)
▪ The difference in the wind pressure between these two
sides causes the shaft to rotate as the cups spin in the
direction from the convex side to the concave side of next
cup.
▪ Rotor assembly responds to ambient winds by increasing or
decreasing rotation rate to balance forces on the cup
surfaces.

▪ The revolution speed is proportional to the wind speed

irrespective of wind direction.
 Working principle of the cup Anemometer
▪ The raw output of a cup or propeller anemometer is the
mechanical rotation rate of the cup wheel (and supporting
shaft).
▪ The shaft of an anemometer is coupled to an electrical
transducer (usually generator) which produces an electrical
output signal, typically a DC voltage proportional to shaft
rotation rate and therefore to wind speed.

▪ An AC transducer may be used, which produces an AC

voltage with amplitude and frequency proportional to rotation
rate.

▪ Another option is an optical transducer that generates pulse

rate which is proportional to rotation rate.
Propeller or Windmill or Vane anemometer

▪ The second most common form of anemometer is the

propeller or windmill variant.

▪ In this design of instrument, the propeller element is kept

facing into the wind by being mounted on a wind vane. This
makes the sensing head directionally sensitive.

▪ As the wind blows through the rotor, differential drag

forces across the blades, together with lift from the blade
aerofoil itself, causes the blades to spin.
Propeller anemometer
Important points about cup anemometer
▪ It has vertical axis of rotation

▪ Due to inertia the anemometer will respond faster in

response to an increase in wind speed than to a decrease in
speed. This means the cups accelerate faster than they lose
speed

▪Therefore, in a turbulent flow (e.g., vertical currents) the

cup anemometer will overestimate the horizontal wind speed

▪ Most cup anemometers have threshold wind speed (e.g.,

the wind speed that first moves the cup) of 0.2 to 1 m/s

▪ It’s omnidirectional, requiring no orientation into the wind.

 Important points about propeller
anemometer
▪ It has horizontal axis of rotation

▪ Lack of omni-directional response to the wind. That’s why

propeller arrays have to be mounted on vanes to keep them
oriented into the wind.

▪ The propeller is automatically positioned into the oncoming

wind and records the wind speed and the direction at the
same time.

▪The propeller anemometer often freezes in the associated

part of the blade under cold weather and can not work
normally
 Pitot-tube Static Anemometer
▪ Pressure-tube anemometers, of which Dines anemometer is
best known, operate on pitot tube principle.

▪The pitot-static tube is actually a pair of concentric tubes with

two ports (e.g., pitot and static)
▪The stagnation or pitot port, at the end of the tube, is a blunt
obstacle to airflow
▪The static port is located at a point far enough back along the
tube and at right angles to the direction of wind flow; hence
this ports have no dynamic flow effects, so the pressure
observed there is just the ambient atmospheric pressure
▪The pitot-static tube must be oriented into the airflow. A
typical tube will tolerate misalignment errors up to ±20°.
Pitot-Static Tube
Static ports

wind

Pitot or stagnation port

P-static
P-stagnation
 Sonic anemometer
▪ Sonic anemometer consists of pairs of transmitters and receivers

▪ Operate on the principle that the time between transmission

and reception of a sound pulse is a function of the speed of
sound plus the wind-speed component along the
transmitter-receiver axis.

Sonic anemometer
 Sonic anemometer
▪ A time differential is found by subtracting the time taken for
travel in one direction from time of travel in the other
direction.

▪ The time differential is assumed to be a component of wind

along the transmitter-receiver axis.

▪ With three sets of emitters and receivers oriented in the x,

y, and z directions it is possible to determine u, v, and w
simultaneously.
Sonic anemometer
 Thermal anemometry (hot-wire
anemometer)
▪ Operates on the principle that the rate of convective cooling
of a heated body is a function of the rate of fluid flow past that
body

▪ In this anemometer, an electrically heated wire is placed in

the wind

▪ The amount of power needed to keep wire hot at a constant

temperature is used to calculate the wind speed

▪ It is because the higher the wind speed, the more power is

required to keep the wire at a constant temperature

▪These types are sensitive and mainly used in low wind speed
measurements.
Hot-wire anemometer
 Components of wind vector
▪ The wind vector can be expressed either in terms of three
orthogonal velocity components (e.g., u, v, and w) or as a wind
speed and direction.
▪ u is the ZONAL VELOCITY, i.e. the component of the
horizontal wind in wet-east direction (e.g., latitudinal lines)
+ve for a horizontal velocity towards EAST.
- ve for a horizontal velocity towards WEST
▪ v is the MERIDIONAL VELOCITY, i.e. the component of the
horizontal wind in south-north direction (longitudinal lines)
+ve for a horizontal velocity towards NORTH
- ve for a horizontal velocity towards SOUTH
▪ w is used for the VERTICAL VELOCITY, which is typically
+ve for an upward velocity and -ve for an downward
velocity
 Three ways to present horizontal wind
direction

▪φVECT is the WIND VECTOR

AZIMUTH, i.e. the direction
TOWARDS which the wind is
blowing.

▪It increases clockwise from North

when viewed from above.

▪Terms such as northward,

eastward etc. imply wind vector
azimuths.
 Three ways to present horizontal wind
direction
▪ φMET is
the METEOROLOGICAL WIND
DIRECTION, i.e. the direction
FROM which the wind is
blowing.
• It also increases clockwise
from North when viewed
from above.
• Terms such as northerly,
easterly etc. imply
meteorological wind
directions.
 Three ways to present horizontal wind
direction
▪ φPOLAR which is the WIND
VECTOR POLAR ANGLE in
two-dimensions.

▪ It increases anticlockwise
from the +ve x-axis, i.e. from
EAST

▪ This in the opposite sense to

the wind vector azimuth and
the meteorological wind
direction, and from a different
origin.
 2. Measurement of wind direction
▪ Wind direction (meteorological) is defined as the direction
from which the wind is blowing, relative to true north, not
magnetic north. Thus a southwesterly wind blows from the
south-west to the north-east.

▪ Compass points have been used to define wind direction,

which is specified using the 360 degrees of the compass,
starting from north and working clockwise, so that 90°
represents an easterly wind, 180° a southerly wind, 270° a
westerly wind, and so on.
 Measurement of wind direction

Wind direction is
measured-
▪ By direction
(Sixteen point of
a compass).

▪By degree
(measured in
clockwise as N, E, S,
W means 0°, 90°,
180° and 270°,
respectively).
 Working principle of wind vane
▪ Wind direction is measured by wind vane, which is an easy
indicator in the form of a shaft, mounted on a vertical axis that
rotates freely around its axis.

▪ Wind vane consists of a brass-arm, mounted on ball bearing

to a vertical axis, which is supported by means of an iron-
stand.

▪ To one side of the brass arm (indicator) there is an arrowhead

and on another side there are two flat vanes forming an acute
angle (about 20°) or a vertical plate, which looks like the
vertical tail part of an airplane and serves as a “rudder”.
 Working principle of wind vane

▪ Below the wind vane there are four direction arms fixed to
the vertical axis by means of a brass boss. In between the
direction arms there are corner indicators.

▪ The direction arms and corner indicators are tightened to

the stand. The direction arms are labeled with N, S, E and W.

▪ The indicator rotates freely around its axis and the

arrowhead is faced to the direction from which wind is blowing

▪ To enable remote indication of the vane’s angle of rotation, a

potentiometer or selsyn motor is mounted on the rotation
axis.
 Wind vane

Arrowhead Vane
 Beaufort Wind Scale
▪ The Beaufort wind scale or Beaufort wind force
scale is an empirical measure that relates wind speed to
observed conditions at sea or on land.

▪ It’s one of the first scales to estimate wind speeds and the
effects, was created by Irish hydrographer Admiral Francis
Beaufort in 1805, to help sailors estimate the winds via visual
observations.
▪If a measuring instrument becomes faulty or is not available,
wind can be estimated by observing smoke as a guide and
using the Beaufort Scale, which starts with 0 and goes to a
force of 12.

▪ It emphasizes more on the observed effect of the wind,

rather than the actual wind speed.
Beaufort Wind Scale
Beaufort Wind Scale
Beaufort Wind Scale
 Wind rose
▪ A wind rose is a graphic tool used by meteorologists to
give a succinct view of how wind speed and direction are
typically distributed at a particular location during a defined
period.

▪ Using a polar coordinate system of gridding, the average

wind direction is shown as one of the sixteen compass
points, each separated by 22.5° measured from true north.

▪ Since the direction is constantly changing, the time

percentage for a compass point includes those times for
wind direction at 11.25° on either side of the point.

▪ In this plot, the width of the bar represents the

magnitude of wind speed and colour bands show wind
speed ranges
Wind rose
 Interpretation of wind rose
▪ The length of the bar for a direction indicates the percent of
time the wind came from that direction.

▪ The wind rose in above figure shows that during this

particular sampling period the wind blew from the west 30% of
the time, and from the north and the northeast 12% of the
time, etc.

▪ The longest spoke shows the wind blew from the west at
speeds between 1-4 knots (light blue) about 4% of the time, 4-
7 knots (dark green) about 18% of the time and 7-11 knots
(dark blue) about 8% of the time.