Wind Power Weather Center - History

The wind speed graph displays two (2) data series (wind & gust speed) over time. Wind direction markers and sunrise/sunset times are also plotted. The x-axis is time (hours) and y-axis is mph (miles/hour) on left and knots on right. If you are viewing current conditions, a green vertical line indicates current time at the sensor. The forecast data will be to the right of the current time line. The graph legend is shown at left, where the blue series (circular points with solid line and shading below) is average wind speed and red series (diamond points with solid line) is wind gust speed. Forecast wind speed is solid gray line with shading below and a dashed red line for gusts. Wind speed is averaged and is a mathematical average of the sustained wind speed. Wind direction is also an average. The gusts shown are maximum gust during the 15 minute data interval. A gap in the average wind speed (light blue shading) means there was some data points missing.

The wind direction is represented with the rotated pointer marker above the wind speed data point. The forecast direction marker is also shown above but a little lower. The marker fill colors follow a 16 point compass and the complete compass can be seen here. The markers are also rotated to exact wind angle, not just at the 16 compass points. The maximum average wind and gust speeds are shown with horizontal line. Also, graph will display a 'tooltip' of graph values when you move your mouse over the graph. You can learn more about this and other graphs here.

The temperature graph displays two (2) data series (temperature & wind chill) over time. The sunrise/sunset times are again indicated. The x-axis is time (hours). The left y-axis is Fahrenheit (°F) and right y-axis is Celsius (°C). The graph legend is shown at left above, where the red series (circular points) is the temperature and the blue series (square points) is the wind chill temperature. The forecast data will be to the right of the current time line.

Wind chill temperature is not plotted above 50 °F. Wind Chill is a function of wind speed and temperature, so you can expect to see fluctuation with wind speed. If wind chill is very close to temperature, the wind chill is not plotted. The high and low temperatures are shown with red and blue horizontal lines respectively and the low wind chill is shown with a lighter blue horizontal line below. A cyan 'freezing' line is plotted at 32.0 °F (0.0 °C) if within range of graph. Also, the area below 32.0 °F (0.0 °C) is shaded a light and cold blue. Again, if you are viewing current conditions, a green vertical line indicates current time at the sensor. Also, graph will display a 'tooltip' of graph values when you move your mouse over the graph. You can learn more about this and other graphs here.

The wind direction graph displays two (2) data series (wind & gust direction in degrees) over time. The sunrise/sunset times are also indicated. The x-axis is time (hours). The y-axis is degrees, where 0° is defined as true North and clockwise is positive (+) angle. So true East is 90°, true south is 180° and true West is 270°. You can see this relationship with the left y-axis showing degrees and right y-axis the cardinal compass points. The graph legend is shown at left above, where the blue series (circular points) is average wind direction and red series (diamond points) is gust direction. Again, if you are viewing current conditions, a green vertical line indicates current time at the sensor. The forecast data will be to the right of the current time line. The forecast direction is shown in a green series (circular points).

The size of the data point (circular and diamond) is representative of speed (magnitude), the larger the point, the higher the value (there are 4 different sizes). A large red diamond indicates maximum gust and large blue circle is highest average wind speed. This graphs show a lot of information of wind & gusts directional relationships over time. For example, at any given time, you can see if the gust was a header or lift in sailing terms. You can also see variances and trends over time which cannot be seen in the traditional wind speed graph. Also, graph will display a 'tooltip' of graph values when you move your mouse over the graph. You can learn more about this and other graphs here.

The wind direction rosette graph displays two (2) data series (wind & gust speeds) versus wind direction (degrees) on a polar (radial) graph. Unlike a x-y (Cartesian coordinates) graph, a polar graph use a r-θ (radius and angle coordinates). The wind and gust speed are represented as 'r' (distance from center) and wind and gust direction is plotted as Θ in degrees. The graph legend is shown at left, where the blue series (circular points) is the wind speed and direction and the red series (diamond points) is the wind gust and direction.

The key above shows the gradient time scale. The older data points are shown with more transparency and more recent points are more opaque (less transparent). The peak gust is shown as a large red diamond and the high average wind speed is a large blue circle. If viewing current conditions, the most recent average wind speed value is shown as green dot (circle) and most recent wind gust (5 min. peak) is shown as green diamond. This graph displays directional and speed data in a visual relationship that time-based graphs cannot illustrate. Also, graph will display a 'tooltip' of graph values when you move your mouse over the graph. You can learn more about this and other graphs here.