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I'm developing a web application which provides cost and sizing estimates for the construction of a facade. The user can input several variables including geographic location. One of the primary variables that our engineers need is design wind loads (Stronger possible peak winds = larger necessary structure.) On any real projects that come in we'll do further site specific analysis with licensed engineers, so the web application just needs to give a ballpark estimate. We're planning to design around three tiers of wind speeds, so the spatial resolution needs to be as high as possible, but the wind speed or risk level resolution can be very low.

I'm trying to find a map, or data which I can process into a map, which encodes wind loads, wind risk assessment, or peak wind gust speeds so that I can then sample the map with the user's selected location. Things I've tried:

  • There are a handful of posts on Open Data looking for global average wind speeds, which I've browsed already. The data is good for what it is, but I'm looking for peak speeds (from thunderstorms, cyclones, hurricanes, etc.), and the events that drive those speeds are short enough in duration that they don't affect the averages enough.
  • The best example of what I'm looking for is the ASCE Wind map, which gives wind design loads for USA only. Something like this at a global scale would be ideal, but I haven't found anything.
  • The closest I've come on a global scale is in looking for maps of level of threat of tropical cyclones (e.g. Global Risk Data Platform - click "Preview the data", top right.), but comparing this with ASCE suggests there's something more to this than tropical cyclones. Alaska, for example, has no risk of cyclones but is equivalent to Southern Florida on ASCE's map.

Of course it would be great if there's a free resource out there, but we'd definitely consider paid alternatives.

Moving this from gis.stackexchange in hopes of more luck...

Trygve
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  • you may consider paid alternatives, but open data doesn't. what about this http://globalwindatlas.com/ – albert May 27 '17 at 13:23
  • actually i think your answer is here https://opendata.stackexchange.com/questions/5214/where-can-i-aquire-global-wind-speed-and-direction-data – albert May 27 '17 at 13:23
  • Possible duplicate of Where can I aquire global wind (speed and direction) data? – albert May 27 '17 at 13:24
  • @albert Thanks for the suggestions! I did peruse that question before posting, with great hope, but those are all looking at forecasts or historical averages, and average speed results in a pretty different ranking than peak or design load speeds. I edited to clarify. – Trygve May 30 '17 at 16:07
  • @albert Some of those links give hourly historical data, which could be used to derive what I'm looking for. I was hoping for a source that had done that processing already, as that's a lot of data, but I'll also reconsider trying to do the processing myself. – Trygve May 30 '17 at 16:10
  • Get in touch with Windfinder. They also have wind meter readings all over the world. – Grimaldi May 30 '17 at 16:34

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