Educational - Wind gusts vs. gust speed

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Wind gusts are generally reported when the wind speed reaches 16 knots and the variability of the wind from highest point to lowest is more than 9 knots. A gust will usually be defined as less than 20 seconds and is the maximum speed the wind reaches.

In Hurricanes, the two minute wind speed average is used as the sustained wind speed. In this case, the gust is also the maximum speed the wind reaches.

With personal weather stations, the definition of Gust varies by manufacturer and software used. Some software packages do not send information on wind gusts to our servers, so the "gust" reading you will see could be the highest wind reading we have been sent.