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Displaying wind data

In this post we discuss the following topics:
1. Displaying

vectors using its X/Y components

2. Computing magnitude and direction using GRASS
3. Using advanced symbology in QGIS

Introduction:
Meteorological conditions of any location at a given time are a function of many variables
such as atmospheric temperature, relative humidity, pressure and mainly the wind
parameter.
This wind parameter and its pattern determine most of the significant weather
phenomena that occur around the world everyday from small wind gusts to the setting of
monsoon. Wind satisfies the conditions of vector quantity as it has both magnitude and
direction, which varies according to the location, season and also the altitude.
Wind being one of the main components of weather is difficult to acquire for a
particular region let alone the whole world. Wind data is mostly available in a gridded
format with values of X, Y accompanied by wind vector data. These data are generally
very difficult to process without the help of some software, which is generally the case for
most meteorological departments all over the world. Meteorological departments
generally prefer softwares for time series analysis (to compare historical data) such as
GrADS. Hence GIS softwares are not widely used or preferred by Met departments for
processing the wind data.
GIS toos provide a lot more features and tools to process and analyse wind data.
These datasets are useful in site suitability studies, fire management and many other
fields where the prevaling weather is an important factor in modeling.

Wind Direction and Magnitude

For most of the meteorological purposes, wind data is measured in terms of its
orthogonal components i.e U (East-West) and V (North-South) components of the Wind.
These can be used to calculate the wind direction and magnitude by using simple

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trigonometric functions.

Data Needed:

The following data are needed to accomplish the task.

Source: ftp://ftp.cdc.noaa.gov/Datasets/ncep.reanalysis/surface/

U component of the wind (Netcdf format)

Wind Data U component from http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd

V component of the wind (Netcdf format)

Wind Data V component from http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd

Wind Direction and Magnitude Calculation using QGIS and GRASS GIS:
Load Netcdf File (Add raster data Open the netcdf files)

Convert each Band to single raster through raster calculator (If multiple bands are
there)

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A grass database and new location (import proj information from converted tif files)
is created at the outset.

U and V data in then imported into GRASS database

Following formula is used to calculate the magnitude

o mag = sqrt( u * u + v * v )

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Formula used in GRASS raster calc window

o if(u > 0 && v > 0,( atan(u/v) + 180),if(u < 0 && v < 0,(atan(u/v) + 0),if(u > 0 && v < 0,(
atan(u/v) + 360), if(u < 0 && v > 0,( atan(u/v)+270)))))

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Magnitude of the raster map is converted into magnitude vector points which holds
the magnitude column which can be used later to fix the size of the arrows

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Value column holds the magnitude value

Direction component from direction raster is converted to vector points
v.sample option is used to transfer raster attributes to points

pnt_val magnitude values and rast_val holds the direction values

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Resulting vector which holds both direction and magnitude is then exported as
shapefile

Viewing datain QGIS:

Vector file with direction and magnitude values is then loaded

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Properties can be changed in style tab ( right click on the vector layer
properties)

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Change button is used to then choose the option as shown in figure below

Setting up size and rotation fields is completed by going back to the style tab to
choose the following options

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The resultant figure obtained in QGIS after the following processes will depict the
wind vector (direction along with magnitude).

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