I noticed that a number of the TV reporters covering Hurricane Frances were using wind-speed gauges of various types to measure the wind speed, even while they were on camera. Some guy would be barely able to stand up in the wind and his wind gauge would be saying the wind is 25 mph.

Our own experience with handheld wind gauges is that they seem to be very inaccurate, showing wind speed that is quite obviously below what it really is.

In the Keys, when I could barely stand up in what was obviously wind over 40, our high-tech, digital, handheld wind gauge would rarely report over 15, with maybe gusts to 18.

Does anybody know which one(s) are the most accurate?

Many years ago we had a very simplistic handheld wind gauge that had a little ball in it that the wind would blow up in the vertical tube to show various wind levels. I don't know how accurate it was, but I'm sure it could not have been worse than the high-tech ones that we have tried.