Wind speed is an important meteorological factor used in various domains, such as weather forecasting, aviation, shipping, construction but of course also for sports and water sports. Depending on the application and the country, wind speed is expressed in different units, such as kilometers per hour (km/h), meters per second (m/s), knots (kt), Beaufort (Bft) and miles per hour (mp/h). In this blog a calculator for converting wind speed and a mnemonic wind force conversion for you with which we explain how you can easily convert wind speed between the mentioned units.
Convert wind force with calculator
Wind speed is usually expressed in meters per second, knots or kilometers per hour. Below is a wind force conversion calculator for Beaufort, kilometers per hour, knots and miles per hour:
Wind force mnemonic
The formulas behind the above calculator are complicated enough, but experience shows that you can also calculate the wind force well with the following mnemonics:
- From Beaufort to meters per second to buy to kilometers per hour. A quick and rough mnemonic that I have been using for years is the doubler from Beaufort to meters per second to buy to kilometers per hour. So 4 Beaufort is 8 meters per second is 16 knots and 32 kilometers per hour. With this mnemonic you are well at the top. In the Netherlands this has proven to be fine for me because we almost always have to deal with gusts of wind and I partly calculate them in this way.
- Convert Beaufort scale (wind force) to knots. There is an easy mnemonic for this. It is actually very easy: take the number of Beaufort (wind force) and multiply it by 5. Subtract 5 from this total and then you have the number of knots. So wind force 6 times 5 is 30. 30 minus 5 is 25. Wind force 6 is therefore about 25 knots.
By knowing these simple wind force mnemonics, you can quickly determine the correct wind speed unit for your application. The Beaufort scale is less exact and is mainly used to express wind force in words.
Convert wind speed with naked eye
Water sports enthusiasts can calculate wind speeds with the naked eye. After all, you can see approximately how hard the wind is blowing on the water.
To give an example of how you can increase your insight using the wind force table, see the image above. Small whitecaps are visible on the water in front of Brouwersdam. This indicates wind force 4.
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