Weather Vanes and Cupolas

This site strives to answer these two main questions; what is a weathervane and what is a cupola?

I never would have thought that the proper spelling of this item is without a space between the words. Weathervanes is correct. Not weather vanes. But many people out there are like me and put a space between the words. Anyway, I digress...

Most people think of a weathervane as a metal compass of sorts sticking out the top of a house and having a rooster on top. They are depicted on farm houses in most artwork and you always see that darned rooster. It swings around with the wind showing you the wind direction. That's basically it.

Weathervanes can easily tell you the wind direction because the pointer will turn into the direction of wind. Winds are named according to the source direction, so a south wind would cause the weather vane to move its pointer to the south. The problem can come if the weathervane isn't balanced correctly in order to show the proper wind direction. Some of them are strictly decorative and little attention is given to balancing. Others are more scientific and less decorative, producing highly accurate direction results everytime.

The modern wind vane replaces the rooster with an anemometer to measure wind speed as well as direction.

They are often mounted to cupolas on the top of a building in order to gain the most accurate reading possible. They do make weathervanes that are designed to mount to a pole in your yard, those are purely for decoration and probably will not give you the best wind reading.

They can come in a wide variety of styles and materials. Wrought iron, copper, brass, steel, bronze and aluminum are the most common, although vinyl and plastic are also somewhat common. You want the material to be sturdy if mounted in a very breezy area.

This site features copper weathervanes, as they are one of the most popular types of weather vanes. We also have a section devoted to the cupola, which is the little house structure the weathervanes are mounted on. You can mount them on poles in your yard, but the classic use is on top of a cupola on top of your house.