Wind roses Ionian & Aegean Greece
How to read a wind rose
The wind rose (windrose) graphically depicts the following wind characteristics:
- Percentage of calms
The number in the center of the circle represents percent occurrence of calms for this area for a given month. - Percentage occurrence of wind in eight compass directions
The length of the 8 lines radiating out from the circle indicates the percent occurrence of winds from each compass direction.
The longer the line the higher the occurrence from that direction.
If the length of the line exceeds 30 percent, the actual percentage (in the example below: 31 percent from the West) is displayed. - Beaufort wind force
The number of feathers on the line indicates the Beaufort force of the wind from that direction.
Each small feather equals 1 Beaufort of wind force. If the Beaufort wind force exceeds force 6, a single large (often red) arrow is displayed instead of the individual feathers.
Example wind rose
Calms: 2%
Winds from N: ~6% 6Bft
Winds from NE: 0
Winds from E: ~6% 4Bft
Winds from SE: ~11% 5Bft
Winds from S: ~5% 4Bft
Winds from SW: ~24% 6Bft
Winds from W: 31% 6Bft
Winds from NW: ~14% 6Bft
~ means you have to make an estimate.
Wind rose data for Greece & Turkey
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January February March April May June |
July August September October November December |
Wind data accuracy
The wind data that was used was taken from a database of worldwide observations taken from 1850 – 1974, i.e. before climate change.
It should be noted that ships at sea tend to avoid areas of bad weather. Because of this, weather information presented here is biased towards favorable weather conditions.
The marine data bases these wind rose were derived from are a compilation of reports from a wide range of sources. Observations were obtained from ship logs, weather reporting forms, publications, automated observing platforms, global telecommunications circuits, foreign meteorological services and scientific research projects. The quality of instruments ranged from those found aboard 19th century ships to sophisticated electronic equipment aboard today's research vessels. Observer qualifications varied from deck hand to trained meteorologist. Errors and discrepancies in the data are present because of the varying quality of the input sources, changes in observing practices, coding practices and data processing procedures through out the history of the data collection. Whenever possible or economically feasible, known errors or discrepancies were corrected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Further reading
Seawater surface temperatures
Windroses for Turkey – Turquoise coasts of Caria and Lycia
Windroses for Croatia – Adriatic
Current weather