The Advancement Of The Wind Speed Indicator

An anemometer is a wind speed indicator, from the Greek word ‘anemos’ which means wind.

A wind speed indicator not only senses the speed of the wind blowing around it, it can sense the wind’s direction. You probably remember the four rotating cups or two crossed arrows at right angles crowned by the outline of a rooster in wrought iron on some roof tops; that was an anemometer. They have been around since the mid 1800’s, starting with a unit developed by John Thomas Romney Robinson, an Irish physicist, in 1846. This invention was no minor feat. In appreciation for his scientific work, one of the craters on the Moon is named Robinson.

There are different types of modern wind speed indicators or anemometers. Technology has come a long way. On the market today, there are traditional models and digital models, and they can be so large you need a platform to install them or so small they can be hand held. There are now even more advanced models such as thermo anemometers, which have sensors for both wind activity and temperature, and ones which can also read the ultraviolet radiation of the Sun.

Many popular and very reliable wind speed indicators cost less than $200 and, like most equipment today, they are designed to be portable and light. It is most often a fan sensor that provides the wind speed indication, and in some cases this fan is built into the unit, but in other cases there is a fan attachment to the unit, connected by a cable. Other sensor options include the hot wire anemometer, which uses a very thin heated wire housed in a telescopic antenna connected to the unit to detect the motion of the wind; and the sonic sensor, which utilizes ultrasonic sound wave distortion by the wind. You should consider how and where you will be using the unit in order to pick a model and a technology.

The digital wind speed indicators have an LED screen to display the readings taken by the sensors, and the size, resolution, and color of the screen affects the price of the unit. Some wind speed indicators are designed to be attached to a weather station, and are remote sensors which feed that equipment. Whether you have enough with a traditional cup anemometer on your roof or you need a portable unit for your hike to the top of the mountain, consider the material of the casing, and the fragility of any cables. Consider also the type of energy with which you prefer to power your unit, which can range from traditional batteries, to rechargeable cells, all the way to solar cells or panels.

Basic flat plate anemometers on the roof are now often seen as yard decorations; as the wind turns them, this action moves a puppet figure or colorful kite wheel attached to it. In schools, many teachers still use the ping-pong ball on a string method as a wind speed indicator. With prices for the digital versions now in the $30 to $40 dollar range, I suspect this will become a fun learning experiment of the past.