If you've done much hiking at all then you know how much effect the wind can have on the temperatures, the clothing you need to wear and generally on how enjoyable the day is. It can be quite a challenge fighting a 50 mph wind all day and that can make you immeasurably more tired by the end of the hike! So I thought I would give a little bit of information here to help with understanding and appreciating the power of the wind.

        As long as I've been hiking I've found it quite a challenge to estimate just how strong the wind is and I have long been intrigued with the way that most people I have hiked with tend to grossly over estimate the wind speed we encounter while out hiking. Of course today there are tiny little hand held anemometers to tell you the exact wind speed. But, without one of those I had always been forced to pretty much a wild guess! That was until the day I discovered something called the Beaufort Scale that was designed by Admiral Francis Beaufort to allow ancient mariners a means of judging wind speed. Since then it has been converted to apply to wind speeds experienced on land. If you'll familiarize yourself with it you will in time become more skilled at estimating the actual wind speed. As you look at the higher classifications you'll see that it's not until the Gale class that you read, "impedes progress" and that's a wind speed of 39 - 46 miles per hour. Remember that the next time you're walking along some ridge being slightly buffeted by the wind and you're thinking the wind must be 50 or 60 mph.

        Another area that the wind can mess with your day out hiking is how much more rapidly the blowing of the wind cools you than if you were hiking in still air. Most of us have come to some degree of familiarity with Wind Chill, but I thought I would provide a wind chill chart to help show you the cooling powers of the wind. I've given both a table and if you have a web browser that can handle javascript I've also given a little calculator for you to play with yourself. Have fun and I hope you find the information helpful!