This annual subscription includes cloud-based access to climatic design information for 9,237 weather stations worldwide, including quantities such as dry-bulb temperature, dew-point temperature, wet-bulb temperature, wind speed, and wind direction at various frequencies of occurrence over a long period (8+ years) as well as access to the underlying frequency data for further analysis and visualization.

 

Users can plot the frequency distribution, the cumulative distribution function, and the mean coincident functions and view joint frequency matrices of dry-bulb temperature and time of day (also known as temperature bin data) and additional information, such as the months and years that were used for station design condition calculations.

 

Weather Data Viewer 2021 also implements various calculation methods found in the ASHRAE Handbook, such as those for return period minimum/maximum temperatures, degree-days to any base, design day profiles including clear sky solar radiation, and decadal trends in some of the key design values. The data for all functions can be viewed in I-P or SI units and can be toggled between the units.

 

Weather Data Viewer 2021 allows users to search for and choose from any of the 9,237 stations in the 2021 ASHRAE Handbook Fundamentals. It can also use a user current location to display nearby stations. A link is provided to open the location in a separate Google Maps tab to examine its surroundings in satellite or street view.

 

Users can download a summary PDF of climatic data information (identical to that published in Chapter 14 of the 2021 ASHRAE Handbook Fundamentals) for any selected station that includes station information such as name, country, coordinates, elevation, time zone, and the period of analysis; annual heating and humidification design conditions; annual cooling, dehumidification, and enthalpy design conditions; extreme annual design conditions; historical trends of selected design conditions; and the following monthly design conditions:

 

Temperatures, degree-days, and degree-hours

Mean wind speeds

Mean, min, max, and standard deviation of precipitation

Design dry-bulb and mean coincident wet-bulb temperatures

Design wet-bulb and mean coincident dry-bulb temperatures

Mean daily temperature ranges

Clear- and all-sky solar irradiance

 

A variety of figure widgets are available to examine various aspects of the climatic data beyond that in the simple climatic design conditions in the summary PDFs:

 

Plot single-variable frequency distribution

Joint-variable frequency distribution

Wind speed and direction distribution (wind rose)

Mean-coincident values

Cooling and heating degree-days

Design-days

Diurnal dry-bulb temperature profileReturn periods

Decadal trends in key design values

Period of record (months used)

 

For each figure, three export options are always available: SVG format, for import into vector graphics programs for editing; PNG format, for import into many other program types such as Word or email; and the raw underlying data in CSV (comma-separated value) format, for import into spreadsheet programs or for usage in offline scripting programs.

 

The cognizant ASHRAE Technical Committee for this work was TC 4.2, Climatic Information. The work was completed for ASHRAE Research Project RP-1847, "Updating climatic design information for the 2021 ASHRAE Handbook, Standard 169, and the Handbook of Smoke Control Engineering," by Principal Investigator Michael Roth of Klimaat Consulting & Innovation, Inc., in Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

 

System Requirements: Internet connection, modern web browser