Explore wind, weather, and motion with ANEMOS
Wind Field Simulator (ANEMOS) is an interactive weather visualization that makes moving air easier to see. Wind is normally invisible, so the simulator reveals it through several connected visual clues: streaks travel across the sky, grass bends near the ground, tree branches sway, leaves scatter, clouds drift, and a flag responds to changing force and direction. These elements do more than decorate the scene. Together, they help show how one set of wind conditions can affect objects with different shapes, weights, and positions.
You can begin with one of five weather presets: Calm Dawn, Spring Breeze, Autumn Gale, Storm Front, or Hurricane. Each preset establishes a useful starting combination of wind speed, direction, gustiness, turbulence, atmospheric pressure, rainfall, and time of day. Presets make comparison quick, but every important value remains adjustable. This means the simulator can be used casually as an animated scene or more deliberately as a small environment for observation and controlled experiments.
Shape the wind instead of watching a fixed animation
The Wind controls let you set speed from still air to extreme hurricane conditions. Direction can be changed with a slider or circular dial, and the interface clearly describes it as the direction the wind is blowing toward. Gustiness introduces temporary increases and decreases in force, while turbulence adds irregular motion to the flow. A high steady wind therefore looks different from a lower average speed with strong gusts, even when both scenes occasionally produce similar peak readings.
You can also drag across the play area to stir the flow. Slow movement produces a gentle local disturbance, while a faster gesture pushes the nearby field more strongly. After releasing the pointer, watch how the streaks and environmental objects respond before the wider wind pattern becomes dominant again. This makes cause and effect easier to observe than it would be in a completely automatic animation.
For a useful comparison, change only one control at a time. Keep speed and direction fixed while increasing turbulence, or keep turbulence low while moving from a breeze to a gale. Resetting between trials creates a consistent starting point. This simple method is useful for student demonstrations because it separates variables and encourages observation rather than random adjustment.
Read the live anemometer and Beaufort scale
The live anemometer summarizes the current simulated conditions while the landscape provides the visual evidence. It shows the current wind speed, compass direction, peak gust, turbulence intensity, and a rolling gust trace. The instrument also identifies the corresponding Beaufort force and supplies a short description of conditions at that level. Students can compare the numerical reading with the motion of the trees, flag, leaves, and grass to connect measurement with visible effects.
Speed can be displayed in kilometres per hour, metres per second, miles per hour, knots, or Beaufort force. Switching units is a practical way to see that the same physical condition can be expressed with different numbers. This is useful for science and mathematics lessons involving unit conversion, and it can help geography students become more comfortable with the units used by different weather services, aviation reports, and marine forecasts.
The anemometer panel can be minimized when a cleaner view is needed. For presentations and captures, it can also be included as an explanatory overlay or excluded so the scene stands on its own. Because the readings come from the simulator rather than a physical sensor, they should be treated as model output—not as measurements of the weather outside the device.
Build different atmospheric conditions
ANEMOS includes more than wind speed. Time of day changes the lighting and colour of the sky, while rainfall adds moving drops and stronger storm atmosphere. Temperature, relative humidity, and pressure values help establish the character of a weather setup. Procedural wind and rain sound responds to the simulation, with a separate volume control for quiet study, classroom projection, or a more immersive demonstration. Pausing the simulation also pauses its sound.
The Visualisation section controls particle density and streak trail length. A higher density reveals more of the flow field but asks the browser to draw more particles. Longer trails make direction easier to read, while shorter trails produce a cleaner, faster-moving texture. Grass, trees, the flag, leaves, clouds, and streaks can each be hidden independently. Isolating one or two layers is especially helpful when explaining how different visual indicators represent the same wind.
These controls also support creative use. A calm sunrise with sparse streaks can become a subtle background, while a dark storm with rain, long trails, and visible trees creates a more dramatic scene. Fullscreen mode removes surrounding page distractions, and the entire customization panel can slide away so the play area expands into the available space.
How science and geography students can use it
Weather observation and meteorology
Students learning basic meteorology can use the presets as five contrasting case studies. They can identify how stronger pressure differences are often associated with more active weather, compare sustained wind with peak gusts, and discuss why turbulence makes real conditions less uniform than a single average value suggests. The Beaufort descriptions provide a bridge between instrument readings and observable effects, which is useful when introducing historical or field-based wind estimation.
A classroom activity might ask students to choose three speeds, keep the direction constant, and record what changes in the flag, trees, leaves, streaks, and Beaufort category. Another activity could hold the average speed steady while changing gustiness and turbulence. Students can then explain which setting changes the maximum force, which changes irregularity, and why an average alone does not fully describe windy conditions.
Earth science and environmental studies
The simulator can support discussion of wind as an environmental force. Students can consider seed dispersal, movement of airborne particles, tree stress, soil drying, evaporation, wildfire behaviour, and the way wind affects built environments. ANEMOS does not calculate all of these processes directly, but its visual field can serve as a starting model for asking what additional information a real investigation would need.
Environmental projects can use screenshots from different setups as labelled scenario illustrations. For example, a report about urban trees might compare a calm scene, a gusty scene, and a storm scene, then discuss why species, root health, surrounding buildings, and soil condition would matter in reality. The simulator helps communicate the wind component while leaving room for students to research the wider system.
Geography, navigation, and map skills
Direction controls are useful for practising compass bearings and cardinal or intercardinal directions. Students can set a direction in degrees, identify its compass label, and describe where objects would be carried. This can lead into map-based work involving prevailing winds, sailing routes, airport runways, weather maps, or the movement of pollution and volcanic ash.
It is important to notice that the interface states the direction the simulated wind is blowing toward. Traditional meteorological wind names often describe where wind comes from. That difference creates a useful discussion about conventions: students should always check whether a direction represents origin or destination before interpreting data.
Use exported data for mathematics and statistics
The Log control records samples and downloads them as a CSV file. The file includes elapsed time, wind speed in kilometres per hour and metres per second, direction in degrees, rainfall percentage, temperature, and pressure. Students can open this file in a spreadsheet to create line charts, calculate minimums and maximums, compare mean speed with peak gusts, or examine how stable a controlled setup remains over time.
A mathematics project can compare two logged trials with the same average speed but different gustiness. Students might calculate the range or standard deviation, graph both series on the same axes, and explain which data set is more variable. A unit-conversion exercise can verify the relationship between km/h and m/s using the exported columns. More advanced students can write a short script to parse the CSV, group readings, or create a custom visualization.
Because the values are generated by a browser simulation, the data is ideal for practising analysis methods without claiming to be real field research. For a formal scientific project, students should pair the exercise with calibrated observations from a weather station or a trusted meteorological dataset and clearly distinguish simulated data from measured data.
Ideas for coding, design, and media projects
Computer science and simulation design
ANEMOS can prompt questions about how interactive simulations are built. Students can identify inputs, state variables, animation loops, procedural noise, particle systems, visual feedback, audio synthesis, and performance limits. They can discuss why increasing particle density costs more processing power, why smoothing is needed when controls change suddenly, or how a responsive interface should behave when the control panel is hidden.
A programming assignment could ask students to design pseudocode for one subsystem, such as updating a wind particle, converting units, mapping speed to the Beaufort scale, or sampling data for a log. They do not need to reproduce the complete simulator. Breaking a complex page into smaller systems is itself a useful software-design exercise.
Art, animation, and presentation work
Design students can use the simulator to study motion, atmosphere, colour, depth, and visual hierarchy. Time-of-day changes create different palettes, while trail length and particle density influence rhythm and texture. Hiding selected environmental layers makes it possible to compare a minimal data visualization with a more cinematic landscape.
Download PNG saves a still image of the play area. Record Screen captures the animated scene and automatically downloads the recording when stopped. Before either capture begins, you can decide whether the live anemometer should appear. The controls are never included, so exported media is cleaner for reports, slide decks, digital posters, lesson materials, storyboards, and project documentation. MP4 is preferred when the browser supports it; otherwise the browser may provide a WebM recording.
A practical workflow for projects
Begin by writing a clear question, such as “How does turbulence change the appearance of a steady 40 km/h wind?” Choose a preset close to the desired conditions, reset the scene, and adjust the independent variable while keeping other controls unchanged. Pause when you need time to read or explain the display. Use the log for numerical evidence and capture a PNG or short recording for visual evidence.
Label each trial with its settings and avoid judging a condition from one dramatic moment. If the project compares gusts, record long enough to observe several rises and falls. If it compares direction, keep speed and turbulence consistent. A good conclusion should describe both what the simulator displayed and what its simplified model leaves out.
Understanding the simulator’s limits
ANEMOS is an educational and creative browser visualization, not a forecasting system, calibrated anemometer, engineering wind-tunnel model, or computational fluid dynamics package. It does not calculate terrain, building geometry, thermal convection, regional pressure systems, or real-world structural loads with scientific precision. The landscape objects are designed to communicate changing conditions clearly and attractively rather than reproduce the exact mechanics of a particular tree, flag, or cloud.
Used with that limitation in mind, the simulator is valuable because it makes variables visible, repeatable, and easy to discuss. It can introduce a lesson, support a hypothesis, provide safe practice data, illustrate a presentation, or inspire a more advanced investigation. Its strongest benefit is not replacing real weather observations; it is helping learners ask better questions about wind, measurement, variability, and the many ways moving air affects the world around them.