Gale
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
The English used in this article may not be easy for everybody to understand. (August 2010) |
|
|
This article has many issues. Please help fixing them or discuss these issues on the talk page.
|
A gale is a very strong wind. The Beaufort scale is a way to measure weather conditions, based on observations. The first level of the scale that uses the word gale is 7 beaufort (of a total of 13 steps). There are other definitions as well. The U.S. Government's National Weather Service defines a gale as 34 to 47 knots (63 km/h to 87 km/h or 39 miles per hour to 54 miles per hour) of sustained surface winds.[1] Forecasters typically issue gale warnings when winds of this strength are expected.
Other sources use minima as low as 28 knots (52 km/h) and maxima as high as 90 knots (170 km/h). The 90-knot (170 km/h) definition is very non-standard. A common alternative definition of the maximum is 55 knots (102 km/h).[2]
References[change]
- ↑ National Weather Service Glossary, s.v. "gale".
- ↑ Glossary of Meteorological Terms, NovaLynx Corporation.
