Does the convention for reporting variable wind direction always use a clockwise (nautical) sense? For example, if the wind varies between 340 degrees and 10 degrees, assuming a clockwise sense the METAR item would be 340V010, but is 010V340 also correct?
71.9k 22 22 gold badges 214 214 silver badges 412 412 bronze badges asked Mar 15, 2020 at 15:16 51 1 1 bronze badge$\begingroup$ I think it is always reported clockwise. A way to check is to remember that the mean wind direction should always be contained in the variance range. $\endgroup$
Commented Mar 15, 2020 at 15:33$\begingroup$ Very related: aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/38528/… Note especially that there are different ways of reporting less than 180 degrees of variation and more than 180 degrees of variation. So in any case, when you have xxxVyyy, it will always be the "shortest" way between those two values $\endgroup$
Commented Mar 15, 2020 at 15:36$\begingroup$ I was just wondering this very thing earlier this afternoon. What a coincidence. $\endgroup$
Commented Mar 17, 2020 at 1:23According to meteocentre.com variable wind directions are encoded in clockwise order:
57.4k 8 8 gold badges 202 202 silver badges 263 263 bronze badges answered Mar 18, 2020 at 18:34 2,035 1 1 gold badge 25 25 silver badges 49 49 bronze badgesThis group reports variations in wind direction. It is only included if during the 10 minute period preceding the observation the direction varies by 60 degrees or more, and the mean speed exceeds 3 knots. The two extreme directions are encoded in clockwise order.
$\begingroup$ I added a quote from that page. Link only answers are discouraged since the link could become invalid. $\endgroup$