Anemometer is blowing on the back of the cup on the opposite end of the cross. Since a hollow hemisphere has a drag coefficient of .38 on the spherical side and 1.42 on the hollow side, more force is generated on the cup that is presenting its hollow side to the wind. Because of this asymmetrical force, torque is generated on the axis of the anemometer, causing it to spin. Theoretically, the speed of rotation of the anemometer should be proportional to the wind speed, because the force produced on an object is proportional to the speed of the fluid flowing
Anemometer past it, but other factors influence the rotational speed, including turbulence produced by the apparatus, increasing drag in opposition to the torque that is produced by the cups and support arms, and friction of the mount point. When Robinson first designed his anemometer, he asserted that the cups moved one-third of the speed of the wind, unaffected by the cup size or arm length. This was apparently confirmed by some early independent experiments, but it was incorrect. Instead, the ratio of the speed of the wind and that of the cups, the "anemometer factor", depends on the dimensions of the