Collection: Wind sensors

Unlike most meteorological measurements, which are scalars, wind speed is a vector.

To fully determine it, three pieces of information are needed: either the three components or the magnitude and the direction (determined by two angles).

However, since the vertical component (at least on average) is usually very small compared to the horizontal components of wind speed, and measuring the vertical component is therefore quite difficult, wind speed is usually understood as the horizontal component. Two pieces of information are sufficient to determine this: either the two components (NS, WO) orthe magnitude and direction. One characteristic of wind that is particularly noticeable at high wind speeds is its gustiness. According to these two components of the wind specification, a distinction is made between gustiness of wind direction and gustiness of wind speed.