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Wind Speed Converter — Sailing and aviation wind converter for km/h, mph, m/s, knots, and ft/s with Beaufort scale labels plus live wind speed for your country.
20 Knots = 37.039938 Kilometers per hour
20 kn = 37.039938 km/hUnit
Generated on May 24, 2026
A wind-speed converter handles the units used in weather forecasts, sailing, aviation, and physics — kilometres per hour for general weather and driving in most of the world, miles per hour for the US and UK, metres per second for scientific work, and knots for everything maritime and aeronautical. Alongside the conversion this calculator also maps any wind speed onto the Beaufort scale, the 0-to-12 force scale invented by Royal Navy admiral Francis Beaufort in 1805 and still used today by sailors, surfers, and meteorologists. The Beaufort number gives an immediately useful sense of what a wind 'feels like' — calm, breeze, gale, hurricane — without needing to remember which numeric speeds are dangerous.
Formula
1 m/s = 3.6 km/h = 2.237 mph = 1.944 knots. Beaufort force F has wind speed v ≈ 0.836 · F^(3/2) m/s.Most of the time you check wind speed because the weather app told you a number and you have no idea whether to take it seriously. Is 45 km/h a normal breezy day in Karachi or the cue to bring in the potted plants before they smash on the floor? Is the 'gusts to 70' warning a reason to delay a Lahore wedding mehndi or just dramatic forecasting? This converter does two things at once — translates between the units (km/h that PMD reports, mph that US sources use, knots that aviation and shipping report, m/s that physics homework asks for) and slots the number onto the Beaufort scale, so you instantly see whether it is a 'light breeze' or 'strong gale'. The Beaufort number is what your grandfather actually used at sea — when whole trees move, that is Force 7, and you cancel outdoor plans regardless of which unit your phone displays. For coastal Karachi residents tracking pre-monsoon depressions, or anyone in Islamabad or Murree watching norwesters roll in, knowing that 60 km/h is the threshold where outdoor dining umbrellas become projectiles is more useful than knowing that 60 km/h equals 37.3 mph. Honest take: trust the Beaufort label more than the raw number — humans process 'gale' faster than '75'.
A wind-speed converter handles the units used in weather forecasts, sailing, aviation, and physics — kilometres per hour for general weather and driving in most of the world, miles per hour for the US and UK, metres per second for scientific work, and knots for everything maritime and aeronautical. Alongside the conversion this calculator also maps any wind speed onto the Beaufort scale, the 0-to-12 force scale invented by Royal Navy admiral Francis Beaufort in 1805 and still used today by sailors, surfers, and meteorologists. The Beaufort number gives an immediately useful sense of what a wind 'feels like' — calm, breeze, gale, hurricane — without needing to remember which numeric speeds are dangerous.
Metres per second is the SI base, and all numeric conversions route through it. Knots are nautical: 1 knot = 1 nautical mile per hour = 1.852 km/h, an accident of cartography that survives because nautical miles correspond to one minute of latitude. The Beaufort scale's mapping to wind speed was originally based on observed sea conditions for naval signalling; the modern numeric definition uses v ≈ 0.836·F^1.5 m/s, which gives the standard Force-12 hurricane threshold at 32.7 m/s (≈ 118 km/h, 73 mph).
Common wind speeds with Beaufort force and what each level feels like outdoors.
| km/h | mph | knots | m/s | Beaufort | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.62 | 0.54 | 0.28 | 0 | Calm — smoke rises straight up |
| 6 | 3.73 | 3.24 | 1.67 | 1 | Light air — smoke drifts |
| 12 | 7.46 | 6.48 | 3.33 | 2 | Light breeze — leaves rustle |
| 20 | 12.43 | 10.80 | 5.56 | 3 | Gentle breeze — small twigs move |
| 29 | 18.02 | 15.66 | 8.06 | 4 | Moderate breeze — dust raised |
| 39 | 24.23 | 21.06 | 10.83 | 5 | Fresh breeze — small trees sway |
| 50 | 31.07 | 27.00 | 13.89 | 6 | Strong breeze — umbrellas hard to use |
| 62 | 38.53 | 33.48 | 17.22 | 7 | Near gale — whole trees in motion |
| 75 | 46.60 | 40.50 | 20.83 | 8 | Gale — twigs broken from trees |
| 89 | 55.30 | 48.06 | 24.72 | 9 | Strong gale — slight structural damage |
| 103 | 64.00 | 55.62 | 28.61 | 10 | Storm — trees uprooted |
| 118 | 73.32 | 63.72 | 32.78 | 12 | Hurricane force — devastation |
5 km/h is a casual walking pace; you barely notice the wind on your face.
20 km/h (Beaufort 3) is what you feel cycling on a calm day — leaves and small twigs in constant motion.
60 km/h (Beaufort 7, 'near gale') makes walking against the wind noticeably harder; outdoor dining umbrellas blow away.
118 km/h (Beaufort 12) is the official hurricane / Category-1 cyclone threshold — buildings sustain widespread damage.
A jet airliner at cruising altitude moves at ~900 km/h — about 7.5× hurricane wind speed, but the cabin feels still because the air moves with you.
Olympic 100 m sprinters get a wind-aided record only up to a 7.2 km/h tail-wind (2 m/s); above that, the time is wind-assisted and not counted.
60 km/h equals 16.7 m/s, 37.3 mph, or 32.4 knots — Beaufort Force 7 ('Near gale'), where whole trees sway and walking outdoors becomes uncomfortable.
118 km/h is the official threshold for Beaufort Force 12 (hurricane force), the same number used by tropical cyclone scales worldwide as Category 1 — widespread structural damage and uprooted trees.
Aircraft taxi speeds are typically 30 knots (~55 km/h, 35 mph); takeoff for an airliner is usually 140–180 knots.
A typical sailing dinghy is most enjoyable in 8–18 knots (Beaufort 3–5 — 'Gentle breeze' to 'Fresh breeze').
The fastest wind ever measured at the surface was 408 km/h (220 knots, 254 mph) in a 1996 cyclone in Australia — well into Force 12.
Olympic 100 m sprint records are wind-assisted only up to +2 m/s tail-wind; above that, the time doesn't count.
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