Owing to the transverse wind, a laser beam drifts when transmitting in an atmospheric channel. The moving speed of the light spot image at the receiving end was deduced using cross-correlation algorithm. By establishing experiments with communication distances of 1.3 km and 100 km, the relationship between the transverse wind and the moving speed of the spot particle image on the optical transmission path was obtained. The results show that the correlation coefficients between the transverse wind and spot particle image moving speed are 0.92 and 0.83, respectively, which proves the feasibility of using the cross-correlation algorithm to obtain the transverse wind speed in atmospheric turbulence. And from this approach, the transverse wind speed and the wind vector moving image on the transmission path can be analyzed easily.