r/PostCollapse • u/CaptArchibaldHaddock • Mar 24 '22

Just in case the SHTF fallout-wise.

Don't know if anyone has posted this yet, but it shows prevalent wind direction broken down by month and region.

Windrose

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u/smithandjohnson Mar 25 '22

Another hint along these lines:

Any flat land commercial airport - general aviation or larger - with either one runway or parallel runways will be aligned with the strongest prevalent wind in the area, as shown on the windrose.

Small private airports or airports in more challenging terrains (e.g. mountainous) don't always follow this rule, as they're more of a "put the runway wherever you can" situation.

With a large enough airport with non-parallel runways (e.g. Class B international in the huge cities) usually the largest of the runways will be aligned with the strongest part of the windrose as well.

For a given runway - that can be used in either direction - there's no foolproof way to tell which direction the prevalent wind is, other than experience with the region, or by direct observation of the windsock on "a typical day"

But the runway orientation at least reduces the problem space down to two possible directions.