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Wind speed readings vs real conditions at 300 feet, my 2 month lesson
Installed an anemometer on the jib tip back in March and started logging wind speeds against what I actually feel in the cab. The difference is wild, the ground station near the site office reads 15 mph but up top we're getting 24 mph gusts. That gap caused me to nearly exceed my load chart limit twice on a job in Newark last month. Now I always add 10 to 15 mph to whatever the ground says and plan picks accordingly. Anyone else found a better way to estimate tower crane wind without relying on the ground sensors?
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emery_taylor1mo ago
That 9 mph gap you saw matches almost exactly what I found on a 197 foot tower in Elizabeth, where ground read 12 and the tip was hitting 21 to 23. What I'd push back on is just adding a flat 10 to 15, because the multiplier changes a lot with height and with what's around you. On an open site the tip wind ran about 1.4 times the ground reading, but next to a row of warehouses it dropped closer to 1.2 because the buildings broke up the flow. Are you logging your numbers by height and wind direction, or just comparing tip to ground? If you can pull even a few weeks of both readings side by side, you can build your own ratio instead of guessing at a flat number, and that holds up way better when the site layout changes.
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