Question

What factors are responsible for the speed and direction of wind? How will you measure speed, wind and direction?

Answer 1

Hint:
-The wind speed is measured by the gradient of intensity.
 -In areas where the Isobars are close together the winds are highest.
 -In the velocity and direction of surface winds, surface friction plays a major role.

Complete answer:
In the upper layers, there are two major factors that influence air flow. The pressure differential allows the air to travel horizontally, forcing the air from a high pressure area directly to a low pressure region. However the Coriolis force deflects the direction of air pressure (in the Northern Hemisphere to the right) and allows the air to flow parallel to the isobars.

Winds at the upper levels will blow around areas of high pressure clockwise and around areas of low pressure counterclockwise. The wind speed is measured by the gradient of intensity. In areas where the Isobars are close together the winds are highest.

In the velocity and direction of surface winds, surface friction plays a major role. Wind speeds are less than would be predicted from the pressure curve on the weather map as a result of the winding down of the air as it passes through the earth, and the trajectory is adjusted such that the wind blows through the isobars through a low pressure center and out of a high pressure center. Typically, the influence of friction does not reach more than a few thousand miles into the air.

At 3000 feet above the ground, the wind blows with a velocity equal to the pressure curve parallel to the isobars. Geographical characteristics such as valleys, cliffs and large bodies of water are typically attributed to these differences. The impact of elevation features triggering local fluctuations in wind normally reaches no higher than around 2000 feet above the ground, except in mountainous areas.

It is possible to calculate the speed of the wind by using an instrument called an anemometer. An anemometer looks like a weather vane, but it has four cups instead of measuring the way the wind is blowing with pointers, so that it can measure wind speed more precisely. Each cup is connected like spokes on a wheel to the end of a horizontal limb, each of which is mounted on a central axis. They spin the axis as wind drives through the cups. The higher the wind, the faster the axis is rotated by the cups.

Note:
i) Wind velocity is a simple atmospheric quantity caused by air passing from high to low pressure, typically because of temperature variations.
ii) Meters per second (m/s) is the velocity SI unit and the unit for recording wind speed.
iii) The Beaufort scale, which is focused on visual measurements of precisely specified wind effects at sea or on land, has also been used to classify wind speeds.