Wind atmosphere based upon how far clouds move from one image to the next. Wind engineering describes the study of the effects of the wind on the built environment, including buildings, bridges and other man-made objects. Historically, the Beaufort wind force scale (created by Beaufort) provides an empirical description of wind speed based on observed sea conditions. Originally it was a 13-level scale, but during the 1940s, the scale was expanded to 17 levels. There are general terms that differentiate winds of different average speeds such as a breeze, a gale, a storm, tornado, or a hurricane. Within the Beaufort scale,
Wind in the source air mass. In California, downslope winds are funneled through mountain passes, which intensify their effect, and examples include the Santa Ana and sundowner winds. Wind speeds during downslope wind effect can exceed . As described earlier, prevailing and local winds are not spread evenly across the earth, which means that wind speeds also differ by region. In addition, the wind speed also increases with the altitude. Nowadays, a yardstick used to determine the best locations for wind energy development is referred to as wind power density (WPD). It is a calculation relating to the effective force of