Wind Climatology


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Wind Month Statistics
Wind months are based on a statistical distribution known as the normal distribution. Using the mean wind speed at 10 meters the values are ranked from highest to lowest for each month. A high wind month is defined as the 90th percentile (90% of data in this ranking are below this point) and for this point that is mph. A low wind month is the 10th percentile (10% of data is below) and is mph.
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This wind climatology is based on historical data from NOAA’s Unrestricted Mesoscale Analysis (URMA). See here. The dataset provides hourly wind speed and direction for CONUS, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico on a horizontal grid-spacing of 2.5 km for all domains except Alaska (3 km) and Puerto Rico (1.25 km). URMA is based on the same system that provides the Real Time Mesoscale Analysis (RTMA). Both RTMA and URMA are 2DVar analysis systems that provide analyses of National Digital Forecast Database parameters. While RTMA is considered for situational awareness, URMA is considered for verification/validation. URMA also serves as a critical component in the National Blend of Models (NBM) program, as it is used for calibration and validation. URMA is a modeling system based on 2-dimensional variational analysis of surface sensible weather fields. Thus, users of this product should be aware the outputs are modeled and not direct observations.

CONUS data is compiled into monthly averages for 10 meter wind speed with frequency using hourly data to bin direction and speed used in wind rose charts. Gust hours are totaled for each month.

Time periods for the tool were expanded to include Seasonal and El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Seasonal are averaged over a 3 month period: Winter (December, January, Febraury), Spring (March, April, May), Summer (June, july, August), and Fall (September, October, November). ENSO periods can span months and years (Episodes by Season). Monthly wind data over each episode is averaged, similar to seasonal, and catagorized based on warm (El Niño) and cold (La El Niña) designation based on the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI). Nuertal episodes are not currently available.

High/Low wind months are calculated by taking the mean 10 meter wind speed for each grid point over the entire climatology (1985-2022) and ranking them. Find the 10th and 90th percentile of the point and compare it with each month and year. The result is the number of months for each year that is above/below these percentiles.

To learn more about the charts you can take the tutorial here.

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Wind Climatology

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