In terms of angle measurement in degrees, North corresponds to 0°/360°, East to 90°, South to 180° and West to 270°.Ĭompiling a wind rose is one of the preliminary steps taken in constructing airport runways, as aircraft can have a lower ground speed at both landing and takeoff when pointing against the wind. Wind roses typically use 16 cardinal directions, such as north (N), NNE, NE, etc., although they may be subdivided into as many as 32 directions. Presented in a circular format, the wind rose shows the frequency of winds blowing FROM particular directions. A wind rose gives a very succinct but information-laden view of how wind speed and direction are typically distributed at a particular location. A wind rose plot may contain additional information, in that each spoke is broken down into colour-coded bands that show wind speed ranges. Read how to interpret a wind rose diagram. Each concentric circle represents a different frequency, emanating from zero at the center to increasing frequencies at the outer circles. The length of each 'spoke' around the circle is related to the frequency that the wind blows from a particular direction per unit time. Presented in a circular format, the modern wind rose shows the frequency of winds blowing from particular directions over a specified period.  North was depicted with a fleur de lis, while east was shown as a Christian cross to indicate the direction of Jerusalem from Europe. No differentiation was made between cardinal directions and the winds which blew from those directions. Typically the wind direction data is sorted into twelve equal arc segments, 30 each segment, in preparation for plotting a circular graph in which the radius. Before the development of the compass rose, a wind rose was included on maps in order to let the reader know which directions the 8 major winds (and sometimes 8 half-winds and 16 quarter-winds) blew within the plan view.

Wind rose diagram

At its best, copyediting can be like tackling a cleverly constructed crossword puzzle, a self-contained and satisfying task-not something I care to do full-time, but an entertaining diversion.  My true mission, however, was deeper and more subversive: to undermine cultural stereotypes by providing the English-reading world with an unmediated view of Chinese culture and society.īack then, I still was doing occasional copyediting in addition to acquiring books in Asian studies and various other fields. My purported task was to copyedit the 1,270 manuscript pages of the English translation of Stories Old and New, a set of forty vernacular short stories collected in the late Ming dynasty (1368-1644) by the most knowledgeable connoisseur of popular Chinese literature of his time, Feng Menglong.  This travel was, alas, only in the mind, but I relished it every day-an eight-hour minivacation in both space and time. But among the perks of my editorial job at the University of Washington Press in the summer of 1998 was being paid to boat down rivers and trek through mist-shrouded mountains in southeast China and to tiptoe into ancient monasteries and palaces, with eloquent and entertaining locals as my guides. Some people spend thousands of dollars and endure hours of exhausting air travel to vacation in exotic places. Stories Old and New: A Ming Dynasty Collection (ISBN: 9780295978444)

Astro saber saw