9 replies to this topic

[jpbellavance]

Hi,

I am currently working on a series of maps for renewable energy. With the wind data I am having a hard time trying to find a resource without paying tons of money to AWS True Power which seems to be the primary source of wind data. They work closely with the US government's NREL offices.

They do have GIS data links to GIS data......which are all dead (Now fixed).

If anyone knows of alternative sources I would happy to buy you a case of virtual beer.

Thanks,
Jesse

[Gretchen Peterson]

Check out the NOAA National Digital Forecast Database here: http://ndfd.weather.gov/technical.htm

Spectacular interactive wind animation of the data here: http://hint.fm/wind/

[jpbellavance]

Check out the NOAA National Digital Forecast Database here: http://ndfd.weather.gov/technical.htm

Spectacular interactive wind animation of the data here: http://hint.fm/wind/

Pretty neat.

[NicKV]

Hi,

I am currently working on a series of maps for renewable energy. With the wind data I am having a hard time trying to find a resource without paying tons of money to AWS True Power which seems to be the primary source of wind data. They work closely with the US government's NREL offices.

They do have GIS data links to GIS data......which are all dead (Now fixed).

If anyone knows of alternative sources I would happy to buy you a case of virtual beer.

Thanks,
Jesse

What kind of wind data do you require?

Do you need wind observations from weather stations, historical or real time.

For historical observational data, Weather graphics can supply this (although I am not sure if it is in a proprietary format) See

http://www.weathergraphics.com/da/

For real time observational data you will want to find software that can import WMO BUFR files, used to distribute real time weather observations.

Or

Do you need numerical weather prediction model output from models such as the Global Forecasting System (GFS), or the Rapid Update Cycle models (RUC) or some other. Do you need current model run ouptut or historical model run ouput. Or,do you need reanalysis model output? If you need model output, then you will ant to find software that can import the WMO GRiB files this data is usually supplied in from the various forecasting organisations.

Most GISs cannot import BUFR or GRiB files without third party add-ins.

[NicKV]

Hi,

I am currently working on a series of maps for renewable energy. With the wind data I am having a hard time trying to find a resource without paying tons of money to AWS True Power which seems to be the primary source of wind data. They work closely with the US government's NREL offices.

They do have GIS data links to GIS data......which are all dead (Now fixed).

If anyone knows of alternative sources I would happy to buy you a case of virtual beer.

Thanks,
Jesse

What kind of wind data do you require?

Do you need wind observations from weather stations, historical or real time.

For historical observational data, Weather graphics can supply this (although I am not sure if it is in a proprietary format) See

http://www.weathergraphics.com/da/

For real time observational data you will want to find software that can import WMO BUFR files, used to distribute real time weather observations.

Or

Do you need numerical weather prediction model output from models such as the Global Forecasting System (GFS), or the Rapid Update Cycle models (RUC) or some other. Do you need current model run ouptut or historical model run ouput. Or,do you need reanalysis model output? If you need model output, then you will ant to find software that can import the WMO GRiB files this data is usually supplied in from the various forecasting organisations.

Most GISs cannot import BUFR or GRiB files without third party add-ins.

Just checked Weather Graphics - historical observational data is provided as METARs. These are plain text messages encoding observations, although you may still find it difficult to import these METARs into a GIS. BUFR is the binary replacement for METARs. Use of METAR format is now being discouraged.

[jpbellavance]

Hi,

I am currently working on a series of maps for renewable energy. With the wind data I am having a hard time trying to find a resource without paying tons of money to AWS True Power which seems to be the primary source of wind data. They work closely with the US government's NREL offices.

They do have GIS data links to GIS data......which are all dead (Now fixed).

If anyone knows of alternative sources I would happy to buy you a case of virtual beer.

Thanks,
Jesse

What kind of wind data do you require?

Do you need wind observations from weather stations, historical or real time.

For historical observational data, Weather graphics can supply this (although I am not sure if it is in a proprietary format) See

http://www.weathergraphics.com/da/

For real time observational data you will want to find software that can import WMO BUFR files, used to distribute real time weather observations.

Or

Do you need numerical weather prediction model output from models such as the Global Forecasting System (GFS), or the Rapid Update Cycle models (RUC) or some other. Do you need current model run ouptut or historical model run ouput. Or,do you need reanalysis model output? If you need model output, then you will ant to find software that can import the WMO GRiB files this data is usually supplied in from the various forecasting organisations.

Most GISs cannot import BUFR or GRiB files without third party add-ins.

Just checked Weather Graphics - historical observational data is provided as METARs. These are plain text messages encoding observations, although you may still find it difficult to import these METARs into a GIS. BUFR is the binary replacement for METARs. Use of METAR format is now being discouraged.

THANKS A LOT FOR LOOKING INTO THIS!!!

[jpbellavance]

Hi,

I am currently working on a series of maps for renewable energy. With the wind data I am having a hard time trying to find a resource without paying tons of money to AWS True Power which seems to be the primary source of wind data. They work closely with the US government's NREL offices.

They do have GIS data links to GIS data......which are all dead (Now fixed).

If anyone knows of alternative sources I would happy to buy you a case of virtual beer.

Thanks,
Jesse

What kind of wind data do you require?

Do you need wind observations from weather stations, historical or real time.

For historical observational data, Weather graphics can supply this (although I am not sure if it is in a proprietary format) See

http://www.weathergraphics.com/da/

For real time observational data you will want to find software that can import WMO BUFR files, used to distribute real time weather observations.

Or

Do you need numerical weather prediction model output from models such as the Global Forecasting System (GFS), or the Rapid Update Cycle models (RUC) or some other. Do you need current model run ouptut or historical model run ouput. Or,do you need reanalysis model output? If you need model output, then you will ant to find software that can import the WMO GRiB files this data is usually supplied in from the various forecasting organisations.

Most GISs cannot import BUFR or GRiB files without third party add-ins.

Just checked Weather Graphics - historical observational data is provided as METARs. These are plain text messages encoding observations, although you may still find it difficult to import these METARs into a GIS. BUFR is the binary replacement for METARs. Use of METAR format is now being discouraged.

THANKS A LOT FOR LOOKING INTO THIS!!!

I basically need historical average wind speeds across the U.S. I know NREL has hardcopy maps of the U.S. and at the state level but what I need is the GIS data they are using to display it. Something they do not give out. Unfortunate since our tax dollars go towards generating it.

Maybe finding a website that had historical archives of weather stations across the U.S. I could generate my own ad hoc layer but not sure it is worth the investment of time for one map.

Thanks for your help everyone.
Jesse

[MeteoInfo]

For software, you can consider MeteoInfo, which is a free GIS software for meteorological data visualization and analysis ( http://www.meteothinker.com ). Many popular meteorological data formats are supported, such as GRIB, NetCDF, GrADS, METAR, SYNOP and so on.

Attached Files

•  Image00436.png   428.33K   28 downloads

Edited by MeteoInfo, 12 May 2012 - 05:01 AM.

[NicKV]

Have you tried looking for what you want here? ...

http://www.ncdc.noaa...ta.html#surface

Specifically...

http://www.ncdc.noaa...cd/avgwind.html

See also

http://www.windpower...v/wind_maps.asp

and

http://www.stanford....s/us_winds.html

and


http://www.nrel.gov/gis/wind.html

Edited by NicKV, 14 May 2012 - 04:15 AM.

[antoniolocandro]

I will try this software, thanks for sharing

For software, you can consider MeteoInfo, which is a free GIS software for meteorological data visualization and analysis ( http://www.meteothinker.com ). Many popular meteorological data formats are supported, such as GRIB, NetCDF, GrADS, METAR, SYNOP and so on.