What are cup anemometers?

A cup anemometer is a fun little tool that tells us how fast the wind is blowing.

Imagine you're on a playground, and there's a merry-go-round. When the wind blows, it makes the cups of the anemometer spin like they’re on a merry-go-round, but instead of kids pushing it, the wind does!

The anemometer has cups attached to a stick that spins around. The more wind there is, the faster the cups go round and round. Just like how you spin faster when you push harder on the merry-go-round.

Each cup catches the wind, pushing it forward. As one cup moves forward, the next one catches the wind too, and before you know it, they're all spinning in a dance of wind and motion!

By counting how many times the cups spin in a minute, we can tell exactly how strong the wind is, just like counting how many times you go around on the merry-go-round tells how fast you’re going!