Gust question

[jspilot]

So the winds have been gusty here around the Long Island area lately. I went flying yesterday and it was quiet gusty and varying directions and in the mighty 152 it was a blast( really I seriously enjoyed the challenge!).

The flight got me thinking about gusts. When checking a metar does anyone know how they report the gust( I mean a gust by definition does not happen constantly) so how does the monitoring device decide what gust to record in the metar? Is it just what the wind was at the time of observation or does the monitoring device average out the gusts and steady winds for the hour and report that? The other thing is the gust that's reported does not usually match the peak wind so that's even more confusing to me.

I hope I asked this clearly enough and that someone can indulge me in my overly curious mind.

 

[ClimbnSink]

I don't know how the auto machines do it, but wind is everything for my winter flying. I'll look at airports but also use weatherundergrounds map that has live wind stations and some of the sailing/kiteboarding wind sites that are in the wind business.

 

[MAKG1]

It's the highest recorded wind speed in the previous 10 minutes.

But it's not nearly as useful as you might think.

Having personally encountered unreported 15 knot gusts, learn to "feel" them in the pattern.

Gusts vary with time and space. The wind station is seldom close to the runway as it would be an obstacle. At work, it's on one of the hangars 1/4 mile away. At the airport I fly out of, it's on the roof of the tower.

 

[airheadpenguin]

My PPL DPE pointed out that while the METAR is helpful, the only wind sensing instrument in the vicinity of the field that matters is the one you're piloting. With METARs being up to 59 minutes old, plus the gust period they don't give you any current information.