What is the calm on the Beaufort scale? How to identify storm scores?

- How are you?
- Complete calm, continuous calm.

A similar answer to the fairly standard question of a friend who has met after some separation may indicate both calmness and the fact that there are problems, and considerable ones. So what is calm, and why is this sea term used to describe often quite terrestrial situations?

Sea calm

This word came to us, most likely, from Holland. It was there that Peter the Great studied naval rules and terms. In German it sounds the same and means the same, that is, the total absence of wind.

Is it good for sailors or bad? Now, in the age of powerful motors, someone might think that such a state of the ocean, the sea, the river or the lake promotes a good journey. But it's impossible to sail without wind. In addition, the lull usually portends a storm. Therefore, the sailor is most liked, when a weak, moderate, or fresh wind is blowing. Details of gradation can be learned by reading the Beaufort scale.

What is the calm on the Beaufort scale?

There is a way to determine the water wave disturbance class, which allows one to assess objectively the degree of its danger. Of course, it is difficult to do this "inexpensively" for an inexperienced sailor, but there are visible signs of help in this matter. There are also quite tangible physical parameters to be measured by instruments. For example, if there is no wind at all.

Calm. What it is?

This is the state of the atmosphere in which air moves at a speed of up to twenty centimeters per second. An almost perfectly smooth water surface is observed, and the smoke from the fire does not deviate from the vertical. Calmness (zero points) should not be confused with quiet weather (1 point on Beaufort), when a small ripple takes place. Wind - up to one and a half meters per second, on scallops of small waves there is no foam. A weak storm of two points is characterized by the vitreousness of short waves and their somewhat higher altitude. Objectively measured velocity of air masses near sea level reaches 3.3 m / s.

A total of a dozen species are distinguished, for example, the appearance of visible "lambs" indicates a storm of three points. It is also called easy (it should not be confused with the weak, it is a little, but stronger). Nine points are called just a storm, by default.

Everything is known in comparison, and it's only the sailor who saw the real wave not only in the picture can correctly identify the storm's point at a glance. But the full (it is still called dead) calm recognizes any newcomer.