Measuring Wind Speeds

AMU guideline

The Army Marksmanship Unit has a posted guideline about wind that I am working with for target shooting at long range. I found it on the CMP website, written by SSG PRASLICK. It derives from a Service rifle pamphlet from 1931. I'll not write it up unless somebody asks, but the site is easily located.

For hunting, determining wind direction, as in picking sites to hunt the next AM or after work, I use two tricks. One is I have an old weather channel radio, that gives wind speed and direction with the Nat Weather Service broadcasts.
The other is I have a series of checkpoints that I look at to and from my hunt spots. Factory smokestacks, flag poles at cemetery and ball field etc.
 
Smoke and wind speed estimation

Smoke rising veritcally - 0 mph. Smoke is nearly horizontal, 85 degrees, at about 35 mph. At 60 degrees from vertical 22 mph. At 40 degrees from vertical 15 mph.

Quick estimate would be 12 o'clock 0 mph; 1 o'clock 15 mph; 2 o'clock 30 mph; 3 o'clock 40 mph.
 
Besides observing smoke, flags, leaves, trees and so on sometimes I use the following:

Drop a piece of paper, dried grass, debris, etc from shoulder height then point at where it lands.
The angle your arm makes with your body divided by 4 is an estimated wind speed.

Larry
 
One thing one needs to take into account, what the wind is doing at your firing point, may or may not be doing the same thing at your target.

When I was running sniper schools, one to the first thing I would do, was to pop smoke at differant distances between 100 - 1100 yards, normaly the smoke went every which way.

Up to about 12 -15 mph, you should use mirage to determine the velocity of wind as it seems to average out the wind.

Past that speed, the wind is normaly constant. Also not everyone sees the same conditions looking through the scope,

Reading wind & mirage takes many hours of burning your eyes looking through a scope.
 
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