Wind speed, or wind velocity, is a fundamental atmospheric rate.
Wind speed affects weather forecasting, aircraft and maritime operations, construction projects, growth and metabolism rate of many plant species, and countless other implications.
Wind speed is now commonly measured with an anemometer but can also be classified using the older Beaufort scale which is based on people's observation of specifically defined wind effects.
Read more about Wind Speed: Factors Affecting Wind Speed, Highest Speed, Design of Structures
Famous quotes containing the words wind and/or speed:
“I stand in awe of my body, this matter to which I am bound has become so strange to me. I fear not spirits, ghosts, of which I am one,—that my body might,—but I fear bodies, I tremble to meet them. What is this Titan that has possession of me? Talk of mysteries! Think of our life in nature,—daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it,—rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? where are we?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There exist certain individuals who are, by nature, given purely to contemplation and are utterly unsuited to action, and who, nevertheless, under a mysterious and unknown impulse, sometimes act with a speed which they themselves would have thought beyond them.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)