Airport Planning: Runways - The Wind Rose

The Wind Rose

The appropriate orientation of the runway or runways at an airport can be determined through graphical vector analysis using a wind rose. A standard wind rose consists of a series of concentric circles cut by radial lines using polar coordinate graph paper. The radial lines are drawn to the scale of the wind magnitude such that the area between each pair of successive lines is centered on the wind direction.

The shaded area indicates that the wind comes from the southeast (SE) with a magnitude between 20 and 25 mi/h. A template is also drawn to the same radial scale representing the crosswind component limits. A template drawn with crosswind component limits of 15 mi/h is shown on the right side of Fig. 6-7. On this template three equally spaced parallel lines have been plotted. The middle line represents the runway centerline, and the distance between the middle line and each outside line is, to scale, the allowable crosswind component (in this case, 15 mi/h). The template is placed over the wind rose in such a manner that the centerline on the template passes through the center of the wind rose.

By overlaying the template on the wind rose and rotating the centerline of the template through the origin of the wind rose one may determine the percentage of time a runway in the direction of the centerline of the template can be used such that the crosswind component does not exceed 15 mi/h. Optimum runway directions can be determined from this wind rose by the use of the template, typically made on a transparent strip of material. With the center of the wind rose as a pivot point, the template is rotated until the sum of the percentages included between the outer lines is a maximum. If a wind vector from a segment lies outside either outer line on the template for the given direction of the runway, that wind vector must have a crosswind component which exceeds the allowable crosswind component plotted on the template. When one of the outer lines on the template divides a segment of wind direction, the fractional part is estimated visually to the nearest 0.1 percent. This procedure is consistent with the accuracy of the wind data and assumes that the wind percentage within the sector is uniformly distributed within that sector. In practice, it is usually easier to add the percentages contained in the sectors outside of the two outer parallel lines and subtract these from 100 percent to find the percentage of wind coverage.