How do you judge the speed of the wind in the field?

[Siskiyou]

I have set a ten-mile per hour wind speed as my arbitrary wind effect-shooting environment.  The reason is that in the evergreen forest of the West there are always a few bug kill or lighting killed trees around.  I have a tendency of getting nervous when I hear large trees crash to the ground on a windy day.  When the wind gets strong I try and find a safe location to set it out, or give up the hunt for the day.  There is a reason they call dead limbs and tree tops Window Makers.  I carry a chainsaw in my pickup to cut out trees that have fallen across the road. 

I have notice that deer normally stop moving around on windy days unless there is rain or snow with the wind.  And the weather is pushing them to a lower elevation.

But what got me on the subject was the effect of the wind on my bullet.  Using the Sierra Bullets Infinity software I used the data collected from my Chrony, when firing a Savage 110, in 270 Winchester, with the Hornaday 140 grain BTSP at 3030 fps.

In this case I used a 10-mile per hour wind at 90 degrees to bullet travel. 

100 yards = 0.97 inches of drift
200 yards = 3.97 inches of drift
300 yards = 9.47 inches of drift
400 yards = 16.68 inches of drift
500 yards = 26.76 inches of drift

I do not consider a ten-mile per hour wind a major factor at one hundred yards.  I shake that much.  But depending on the presentation of the target the shot gets a little more difficult at two hundred yards.  At three hundred yards the drop of the bullet and the wind drift becomes a critical factor for the average hunter. 

The last time I went out to practice for a couple of hours I was getting a strong north wind.  The trees around me were swaying with the wind, and it was kicking up clouds of dust off a dirt road.  I had placed some surveying flags down by my targets and the wind was lifting them. Competition shooters have wind flags and I assume that some of them are using a handheld anemometer.  I have an older type, but I do not carry it with me when hunting.  But on some days an anemometer is not helpful because the burst of wind comes in gust with high and low wind speed.

I have been known to toss a little dry dirt in the air, some pine needles or oak leaves to get the wind direction or a little spit on a finger.  All scientific in nature.

But on that day the wind was a factor on the range.  I was shooting three different rifles which normally shot good groups.  But every shot would have taken a deer out to 200 yards.  A side, behind the shoulder shot would have been do able at 300 yards, but a frontal shot at that distance on a small buck might place the bullet on the edge or outside the kill zone.  A four hundred yard shot with the cross hairs centered on the front of a deer’s chest at 400 yards with 16.68 inches of drift, and 17.45 inches of drop would result in a miss. 

At times I have taped a drop chart to the stock of my hunting rifle.  Especially if I am hunting an area where a long shot might present itself.  I believe that I will included wind drift data at ten miles per hour.

As a kid I learned about the Beaufort Wind Scale in Scouting.  I believe that a hunter can use this system to his advantage.  It is not as fool proof as plugging numbers into a computer program but it might help you manage bullet drift.  I believe that people have a tendency to over estimate wind speed.

http://home.comcast.net/~garyt1/wind.html

http://www.answers.com/topic/beaufort-scale?cat=technology&method=22

[Don Fischer]

When the wind really starts blowing, I don't want to be there anyway. In my experience, wind spooks the animals. Up to ten MPH wind, as though I knew what that was, I don't worry about it to much. I don't shoot at running animals and if the wind is blowing, just hold into it a couple inches. Makes not a lot of difference if you hit it in the shoulder or just behind it. Oh yea, I don't shoot much past a couple hundred yards as a rule either.

[SHOOTALL]

if you were ever where you knew the wind speed and could watch the grass then you would have a model ,
if the wind is strong enough to make trees move even a little , might be good to stay from under them !

[Siskiyou]

A few years back a buddy missed a buck the opening day of the season.  A couple weeks later I return to the area figuring the buck might of forgotten the bad experience.  I had checked the weather and it indicated that some areas would effected by high winds.  Predicted winds speeds were forecasted for Peaks and Ridges.  I decided to go anyway because there was about a week left in the season.

It was a little breezy but not bad at daylight, but around 0800 the wind started to pickup.  I tried to wait it out but when I heard the first bug kill snag crash to the ground I hike out to my rig and head out of the woods.  As I drove out dust was blowing off the dirt roads.

I did not see anything but a glimpse off a ragged coyote on my way out.

The plan was to return to the area as soon as the wind dropped off, because I felt the deer would be out feeding.

There are Remote Automated Weather Stations located all over the country.  There was one about fifteen miles from where I was hunting and I kept checking it on my computer.  I was also keeping up with the weather forecast.

If I was hunting around Antelope I might check this remote station

http://raws.wrh.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/roman/meso_base.cgi?stn=ATFO3&time=GMT

OR
For your area start with this interactive map: http://raws.wrh.noaa.gov/roman/

Based on the weather forecast I felt that I could return to the area and the deer would be moving.  Based on the RAWS information I knew that winds had gusted over 50 miles per hour at the weather station.  I knew that there was a buck with very dark horns on one side, and it was time to get him.

When I arrived in the area there was no wind, and it was cool and sunny.  I expected that kind of weather because I had been listening to NOAA weather on my radio weather channel.

I collected that buck and it had a special meaning because my long time friend and hunting partner had missed it, and told me where to hunt it.  Had a ten-mile per hour wind been blowing it would not have made a difference.  At 150 yards the wind drift would have been about 1.21 inches. 

The reason I was a little late getting on my stand was that I had to clear a broken tree out of the road a few miles back.

For years my hunting partners and I have monitor the weather on our portable radios when traveling to or from our hunting area.  Now days we also take advantage of the different NOAA forecast offered on the Internet.  A few clicks on the Map of the United States up around Modoc ED’s country and I find a Red Flag warning with gust winds up to up to 30 mph on Sunday.  http://www.nws.noaa.gov/





   

[beemanbeme]

I try not to carry too much stuff with me when I go hunting. I read about guys that haul or set up little houses when they go Pdog shooting with computers and range finders and shooting benches and such but that's just not my cup of tea.  I'm more of a K.I.S.S. kinda guy.
Out west, if the wind is blowing (when doesn't it blow) the animals seem to seek out the still envelopes and then you have to figure out how to stalk them.  If I have to do any serious wind calculations beyond say holding a rib bone to the left or right, then I figure I need to get closer.  If I absolutely can't get closer, I certainly don't start sniping at the animal. I keep trying until I bump the animal and he goes over the hill.  You have to let them win once in a while or they'll stop playing. 
I'm like Don, except for varmints, I don't shoot at animals that far away. I shot 12 elk in 15 DIY trips to WY and all were shot under 200 yards, I shot one antelope at 380 yards with a .280 on a dead still day shooting prone with a Harris bi-pod, and my son shot a mulie with a 7-08 at 280 yards. 

[Siskiyou]

When I am out hunting I do not carry a windmeter in my pack.  But I do take it outside at times so that I can observe the effects of wind on lower tree limbs, grass, and brush.  I can feel the wind on my face and will have bases to estimate the wind speed while out hunting.  Many times it will go with me to the range.

In the field I might observe a lot of wind activity in the treetops but very little wind on the ground.  A close range shot should not be affected by the wind, but if the shot is across an open canyon the funneling effect of the wind velocity is increased on the bullet. 

This year I have noticed an increase of windy days in the West.  On the Pacific Coast the impact is that it has pushed the normal monsoon Eastward reducing the number of thunderstorms in California this August.  I cannot recall as many Red Flag Warnings and Red Flag Watches in the West as there has been this year.

I just went outside and played with my Dwyer handheld windmeter.  The forecast for this evening is: Tonight: Clear, with a low around 58. West-southwest wind at 7 mph becoming east southeast.
I observed that the small limbs at about shoulder level on Pine trees were barely swaying back and forth and very little movement in the Oaks.  I could feel light air movement on the hair on my arms.  And the flow of air across the sweat on my forearms.  Light air pressure could be felt on my face.

I held up the windmeter in the direction I felt the wind from.  The bulb in the meter floated up and down from two to four miles per hour.  In a 15-minute period there was one gust up to seven miles per hour.

Normally fixed weather stations measure wind speed at 20-feet about ground level.  These winds at ground level are lower because of vegetation, and other obstacles.  A NOAA forecast for an area will give predicted wind speeds at the 20-foot level.

20-FOOT WINDS.......
     VALLEYS/LWR SLOPES...SOUTHWEST WINDS AROUND 8 MPH SHIFTING TO
                          THE EAST 8 TO 9 MPH AFTER MIDNIGHT

The difference in wind speed is because the two forecast are for different elevations.

http://www.dwyer-inst.com/htdocs/airvelocity/SeriesPORTABLEWINDMETERIntro.CFM

http://www.frostproof.com/catalog/t061.html

I normally hunt in elevations between 5000 and 8000 foot elevation.  The location I sight my rifle in at is at 6700 foot elevation.  At these higher elevation wind is more common, then the lower 2000 foot location I shoot at during the winter.  And my experience in the Rocky Mountain States is that they are subject to major wind events in normal weather years.

[beemanbeme]

This is an interesting subject and it is one I wisht I knew more about but one of the problems here in Wild and Wonderful West Virginia and in Wyoming where I did a lot of my western hunting is what is the wind doing between you and the animal.  How hard is it blowing where you are?  How hard is it blowing where the animal is?  How hard in between?  Here on my home shooting range, I shoot along a little bottom.  Between my shooting bench and the butts is a shed with a Koi (Japanese good luck flag) on a pole, my house with an American flag on the front porch, and at the butts, a stick with surveyor tape on it for wind direction.  I have seen those three different flags indicating three different wind directions at the same time. To the right of the butts lies a "holler", I've seen the surveyors tape standing straight out to the left when I couldn't feel a breathe of air on me.  It wouldn't have kept me from killing a deer at the 100 yard distance --unless I was one of those boy howdys that say they shoot 'em in the eye-- but it was raising hob with my shooting at a half inch bull's eye.     So if you could accurately gauge the wind where you are standing, how do you know how hard it is blowing 400 yards away?  500?  Etc?  In truth, that is why I often look with jaundice eye at some of those claims of kills several hundred yards away.  Rarely does the wind not blow out west and rarely are the still air envelopes that large. 

[SHOOTALL]

something to consider is that the wind has more effect the closer the bullet gets to the target .
a wind near the target will have more effect , if for no other reason than the bullet has slowed and the wind has more time to affect it ! if grass is present it can help ( or other indicators you can read ) so if you are in the open and the target is enclosed the wind may have little effect if any , though you may feel like it is blowing you away !
this is a most interesting topic , one last thought , if you shoot alot at long range in all wind condition you may learn to deal with it almost second nature and not really ever have a rule or be able to explain it ! like the feel a long bow archer has !

[Siskiyou]

When I was a kid I had three different ways of handling the wind, my buddy and I would go waterfowl hunting, jackrabbit hunting or we flew a kite

I believe that some days are better then others for nailing the wind.  I was out in Northern Nevada one day and I swear there were five or six dust devils going in as many directions.  I have seen antelope out in the same area carrying canteens, so I know that unstable air has challenged antelope hunters.  The give away was the general direct the tumble weeds where blowing.

I visualize wind as one sees a mountain stream flowing down stream.  The water flows around obstacles, creating eddies behind the obstacle, and if the velocity is fast enough the water sprays in different directions.  If there is a narrow straight in the stream the velocity of the water increases.

One of my pet stands is out on a high rock point overlooking an old clear cut.  The face of the stand is a 200-foot sheer cliff, it is like a dam on the mountain and directly behind it the mountain raises another thousand feet in elevation.  About three hundred yards to the West is a low saddle.  And on the Eastside is a thick stand of timber.

Year’s back there was a number of wind indicators on the edges of the clearcut, and on a distant logging road.  The indicator was flagging.  I could use the flagging to indicate the direction wind was blowing.  And at times I would have flagging indicating different wind directions. 

1.   Directly in front of the stand is a stream course that flows 4000 feet down the mountain into a valley.  In the afternoon the updrafts flow up slope and crashes in to the rock face.   The wind flows vertical up the face of the rocks.  The problem is that I cannot treat the wind as a head wind.  I must compensate the vertical lift, but how much?
2.   The Saddle!  A shot at a deer in the saddle is affected by the immediate vertical wind, and higher velocity wind as in flows threw the saddle.  The only way I can judge the wind in the saddle area is to glass the lower tree limbs in that area for activity.
3.   The timber stand acts like a big sponge absorbing and defusing the wind.  In a strong wind I will still have to make adjustments
While I can see a lot of country from this stand one of the down sides is that opportunities may range from 100 yards to 400 yards.  The upside is that wind is not an issue 80 percent of the time.

I have had to leave this stand a couple of times when thunderstorms have moved into the area.  This mountain is a big lightning rod, and the crash of lightning tends to make me nervous.  Seeing the top of a tree blown apart is impressive.  But along with a thunderstorm comes unstable air. Normal wind patterns are out the window and the hunter must depend on his observations.  Many times after a thunderstorm passes waterdogs come up from springs.  One can watch a waterdog and get the feeling for wind direction and velocity.   Normally when one sees waterdogs there is only light winds at most.

One thing to be aware of is that if you are hunting on the off side of a saddle the wind will create an eddy.

One of the wind indicators in Wyoming is the placement of mobile homes along I-80.  The majority of them are setup to with stand winds blowing out of the West to the East.  Old Indian trick, place trailer so wind does not blow it over.

[buck460XVR]

some of the nicest bucks I have ever snuck up on were when the winds were howlin'....and at twenty yards the wind never had much influence on the shot. When it's still, so am I, but if the trees are movin'....so am I. Since most of my hunting is done in heavy cover and close range, I don't pay much attention to the wind other than direction.

[Siskiyou]

There is no area in California that is not impacted by the noise of commercial aircraft.  They fly the length of State coming out of Oregon and Washington.  Then flights come and going from the US cut up the rest of the path.  Listen for a plane and then move.