This DVD contains the results from ASHRAE Research Project RP-1477, "Development of 3012 Typical Year Weather Files for International Locations," developed by White Box Technologies, Moraga, California, Y. Joe Huang, Principal Investigator.

The DVD contains "typical" weather files, suitable for use with building energy simulation programs (TMY3 CSV format), for 3,012 locations outside the USA and Canada. The files are derived from Integrated Surface Hourly (ISH) weather data originally archived at the National Climatic Data Center. For these selected locations, the ISH database contains weather observations on average at least four times per day of wind speed and direction, sky cover, visibility, ceiling height, dry-bulb temperature, dew-point temperature, atmospheric pressure, liquid precipitation, and present weather for at least 12 years of record up to 25 years. Because the ISH database contains no measured solar radiation, the hourly total horizontal solar radiation is calculated using an empirical model based on the sun-earth geometry, reported cloud cover, temperature difference from three hours previously, relative humidity, and wind speed. A second empirical model is used to calculate the direct normal solar radiation based on the solar angle and the ratio of the derived total global horizontal compared to the extraterrestrial solar radiation. Other models then use these derived solar radiation values to calculate various illuminances (global horizontal, direct normal, diffuse horizontal) and zenith luminance that are useful for daylighting studies.

System Requirements: The data files on this disc can be read from most computers (PC, Mac, Unix, or Linux) with DVD drives. Note: Software version updates vary by operating system. There is no guarantee that all features of this DVD will be available to all operating systems. DVD is single-user only. Adobe® Acrobat® or Adobe Reader® is required to view the user's manual and research report. A free version of Adobe Reader can be obtained from the Adobe Web site at http://get.adobe.com/reader/otherversions/.

Adobe, the Adobe logo, Acrobat, and Reader are all either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and other countries. A Web browser is required to access the HTML files. To copy all of the data and reports to your computer requires approximately 800 MB of available hard disk space.

Keywords: weather data, weather for energy calculations, energy calculations, IWEC2, IWEC 2, IWEC 2.0