A wind with a velocity of 40.0 km/h blows at 60.0 degree.
What is the northen component of the winds velocity?
What is the eastern component of the winds velocity?
Wind direction is measured clockwise from north. On a standard graph,
sixty degrees clockwise from the Y axis is thirty degrees up from the X axis.
The 40 km/h is the length of the hypotenuse; the northern component
is the length of the Y side of the triangle; the eastern component is
the length of the X side of the triangle.
Y/40 = sin 30 Y = 40 * sin 30
Y = 40 * 0.5 = 20 km/h (northern component)
That's the effective speed of the wind blowing north.
X/40 = cos 30 X = 40 * cos 30
X = 40 * 0.866 = 34.64 km/h (eastern component)
That's the effective speed of the wind blowing east.