How can you tell the difference between different kinds of wind gusts?

AccuWeather

Straight-line winds cause far more damage during severe thunderstorms than tornadoes, but what exactly are the different types of winds that can happen? AccuWeather's Anna Azallion breaks them down.

Transcript

00:00Well, with storms like we had over the weekend, sometimes when we're not talking about tornadoes,

00:06we're talking about wind anywhere from what you were seeing on the left side of your screen

00:10with the wind kind of ruffling the fur of the dog there to actual damage being done

00:15to a roof and that flag really blowing in the wind.

00:17Now, when we talk about severe weather, a lot of times we're talking about damaging

00:21wind gusts and this being one of the likeliest risks that we will see.

00:25But what exactly does that mean?

00:26Well, you might also hear us call them straight line winds.

00:28It's one in the same and damaging wind gusts or straight line wind damage, that's actually

00:33more common than tornado damage and the speeds that we're talking about, 50 to 60 plus miles

00:39per hour.

00:40That's when we get into damaging wind categories, but you can actually kind of estimate wind

00:44speeds just based on visual clues.

00:46We'll go through a couple examples.

00:47So first of all, we have just a light breeze, right?

00:50That's when you're outside.

00:51It's kind of a nice day.

00:52Some leaves might be kind of ruffling in the wind, four to seven mile per hour winds, very

00:56light.

00:57And then another breeze is maybe when you have an umbrella and it's kind of difficult

01:01to keep the umbrella working, right?

01:02Like it might be flipping inside out, things like that.

01:05That's when we get to 25 to 31 mile per hour winds.

01:08Then gale force winds, for example, we often talk about with, you know, tropical storms

01:12that are forming.

01:13This is much stronger.

01:14We're talking about 39 to 46 mile per hour winds and trees are going to be swaying.

01:19Traffic lights might be blowing around as well.

01:21Here's a couple more examples.

01:23So a severe thunderstorm, there's actually criteria, right?

01:26For a severe thunderstorm warning, winds have to be 58 miles per hour or greater.

01:31You might see power lines swaying dangerously.

01:34It can reduce visibility because of dust, rain or debris blowing around.

01:39Then we get to destructive thunderstorms.

01:41This is 80 mile per hour wind gusts or stronger.

01:44And that's when we talk about large trees uprooted.

01:47A category one hurricane, of course, is going to be bending trees.

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