The measurement of gustiness at routine wind station : a review

Many meteorological stations observe wind gusts on a routine basis. The measuring procedures, however, are far from uniform. Some stations measure "instantaneous gusts" with fast response equipment, whereas other stations report the fastest mile. In this report it is tried to unify the observation practice by formulating specifications for the measurement of wind gustiness. The user requirements are reviewed and the consequences for the measuring system are discussed. Two aspects play an important role in this problem. First of all it is important to observe wind extremes in a uniform way and such that the results can be used directly in wind load studies. Secondly, gustiness measurements, can be used to characterize the exposure error of wind stations. The gustiness of the wind is a measure of the turbulence intensity which Is directly related to the roughness of the upstream terrain. This information enables the correction of mean wind observations for local perturbations. Application of such procedures would greatly enhance the quality of sumface wind observations over land. The best gustiness parameters for this application are the standard deviation of wind speed systems.