Road-Testing Our Wind Meter In Storm Dennis

April 30, 2020

3 minute read

This year, we wanted to help you get to know our team a little bit better, so we're featuring blogs from some of the wonderful weather watchers who contribute to the ClimeMET brand.

This blog post is written by Claire, who you may recognise from our sales team, and features her adorable Labrador Dollie. They offered to road-test our ClimeMET CM2030 Wind Meter for us during Storm Dennis back in February.

I live in a small village in rural Suffolk surrounded by fields and being able to explore different countryside walks with my four-legged friend is one of my favourite pastimes. We love to take in the amazing views and the different types of nature that surrounds us (whatever the weather!).

Come rain or shine, Dollie insists we go for nice long walks so she can explore - jumping in the grassy, water-logged ditches, playing with sticks and having a good run around. Enjoying the great outdoors!

This particular weekend, yellow, amber and red severe weather warnings had been issued across different parts of the UK. Storm Dennis was making an appearance. With the highest wind gust being reported at 140mph in some parts of the country, and severe flooding in others, I was a little dubious to head outside for our normal weekend exploration, especially as Storm Dennis arrived less than a week after Storm Ciara, so there were already many branches and trees down.

I wrapped up wearing my normal walking attire and put my CM2030 Handheld Anemometer in my coat pocket, along with Dollie’s treats. I thought it would be a great time to see what the wind speed was in the open field.

With Dollie playing in the ditches, running along with the broken branches that had fallen from the trees during the storm, every now and then I took a wind speed reading with the CM2030, which only took a couple of seconds.

Ensuring Accurate Anemometer Readings

The best way to ensure accurate wind readings is to simply hold your anemometer out in front of you at arm's length, and raised a little, ensuring the wind isn't being blocked by your body, trees or other objects. You want the impeller (the fan shape at the top of the anemometer that rotates when the wind is blowing) facing into the wind. When the wind is blowing through the impeller it can be quite noisy, so it's a good way to check you're facing the right direction.

To my surprise the highest wind speed that was recorded was just under 13mph, the lowest being 4.9mph. It seemed Storm Dennis was finally calming down.

ClimeMET CM2030 Handheld Anemometer Out In The Field

Knowing the current wind speed was at a safe level, we decided to carry on exploring through the wind and rain. Living in the area that I do, I count myself lucky that I have open fields to explore, and being able to take a small weather instrument with me that is super easy and quick to use it makes it all the more interesting.

The impact of Storm Dennis varied across the country. Here are some of the weather records it brought with it:

The strongest wind gust was recorded at Aberdaron in north west Wales, where 91mph was recorded at 18:00 on Saturday 15th February 2020.
Gusts of 140mph were recorded offshore.
Between midnight on the morning of Saturday 15 February 2020 and 10:00 on Monday 17 February 2020 a Natural Resources Wales site at Crai Resr in Powys, South Wales, recorded 157.6mm of rainfall.