Cumulus Support

I might be the only one that didn't know this. I thought I would post this for others that might be wondering what the F scale was used to set the description above the Wind section on the main page. Description like "F1 Light Air". Real interesting.

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/beaufort.html

You (and other users) might also be interested in what is being written on the WikipediA Beaufort Scale page - somewhat a bit more informative...

I wonder whether the usage of the word "breeze" has changed since the scale was first devised.

I tend to think of a breeze as something benign, and find it hard to think of a strong breeze as something defined as: "Large branches in motion. Whistling heard in overhead wires. Umbrella use becomes difficult. Empty plastic garbage cans tip over."

Agree with your breeze comment, Presently Cumulus is showing we are having an F3 - "Gentle breeze" here with gusts up to around 50kph. NZ Metservice is calling the wind "Strong" although it's slightly more lively at their location across the harbour.

The BOM here in Australia uses the term 'wind' instead of breeze. See http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/glossary/beaufort.shtml

Cumulus uses the UK Met Office definitions: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/mar ... scale.html

Regarding the word 'breeze': to me the word 'breezy' definitely covers moderate winds as in the Beaufort definition. It's currently F4-F5 here (has been for the last couple of days) and that's definitely a breeze as far as I'm concerned.

Don't forget that you can change the descriptions to match any local usage using strings.ini. I would advise against making up your own definitions if you publish them to a web site...

I stumbled across this recently :

"Historically, the Beaufort wind force scale provides an empirical description of wind speed based on observed sea conditions. Originally it was a 13-level scale, but during the 1940s, the scale was expanded to 17 levels".

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind#Wind_force_scale

We're up to Force 6 here (average 28mph/45kph, gusting to 37mph/60kph) so it's starting to get a bit breezy now

Still quite pleasant outside in the sunshine

Deleted

steve wrote:
Regarding the word 'breeze': to me the word 'breezy' definitely covers moderate winds as in the Beaufort definition. It's currently F4-F5 here (has been for the last couple of days) and that's definitely a breeze as far as I'm concerned.

Makes me laugh this does a little, describing an F5 as a breeze, until you go out in an 8m RIB lifeboat in it, slightly more than a breeze then lol