How does the wind gauge work?

On the Authentic (Hardcore) difficulty, you have to compensate for the wind. While looking through your sniper scope, there is a small gauge up near the top that indicates the direction and force of the wind:

The gauge shows a white tick mark that moves back and forth to indicate the wind. The farther over it is, the stronger it is blowing in that direction.

My question is, should I try to align my target under the white tick mark of the gauge or is the gauge purely to show how strong the wind is currently blowing and for estimating purposes only?

Solution 1:

If you use the empty lung you'll see that if the white tick is to the left, it means the wind is blowing to the left (the farther it is, the stronger the wind). This means you need to shoot further to the right. I usually use the empty lung to gauge it.

It has no impact on the up and down as you mentioned, that's purely the distance of the shot. Wind will force you to aim further right if the wind marker is to the left, and vice versa. So no, you should not align underneath the tick marker but rather opposite of it.

As you can see from this image (apologies for the quality it's on my phone aiming at the TV); you'll notice that the white tick is about 1/3 of the way to the right and I'm aiming about 1/3 of a tick (on the scope) to the left to compensate.

This image was tested at 50 - 200m and the range made no difference.