NSRDB2EPW: Automated EPW File Generation from NSRDB Climate Data

Introduction

This notebook allows the downloading of climate data and automtic conversion into EPW files for any year up to 2023 (where available dataset exists on NSRDB) for almost every location in the Americas.

For 2024 and onwards, refer to diyepw package (https://github.com/IMMM-SFA/diyepw) which retrieves weather station data and parses to .epw.

Conceptual steps

• Gather your query location as a WKT geometry (in WGS84 CRS, could be Point, Polygon, MultiPolygon, etc. but a minimum working example is a Point) and prepare it as a string
• Determine the dataset you would like to query, and the appropriate temporal resolutions and the years you neeed.
• Obtain an API key. You can sign up for your API key.
• Translate the geometry into NSRDB point_ids (automated by the pipeline, no need to worry)
• Get the weather data about the associated point_ids and parse them into DataFrames and write them as CSVs (automated by the pipeline, no need to worry)
• Translate these DataFrames into EPW files and write them (automated by the pipeline, no need to worry)

Credits

The dataset and a interactive web portal is available via NSRDB Data Viewer. This pipeline takes advantage of the sample query code provided here.

Thanks to Patrick's script we have a ready-made workflow for EPW file generation.

Walkthrough

1. Prepare your query geometry

Prepare your query geometry representing the area of investigation as a WKT string. Further guidances on WKT string are available here.

A minimal working example is a Point such as POINT(-76.48408307172359 42.45094507085529) which is the location of Cornell AAP.

2. Determine the right temporal resolution and coverage

By referring to the table below, determine the right temporal resolution and coverage.

Datasets and their coverage:

Geographies	Name	Temporal Resolution	Geographical Resolution	Years (Inclusive)
USA Continental and Mexico	nsrdb-GOES-conus	5, 30, 60min	2km	2021-23
USA and Americas	nsrdb-GOES-full-disc	10, 30, 60min	2km	2018-23
USA and Americas	nsrdb-GOES-aggregated	30, 60min	4km	1998-23
USA and Americas	nsrdb-GOES-tmy	60min		2022-23

3. Obtain an API key

You are suggested to sign up for your API key before working with the script. For lab purposes you can use the key provided (it is my key actually so pay attention to the payload if you are doing batch downloads for larger regions).

4. Run the script with the inputs

Provide the inputs for the script to run. The output .epw files will be named accordingly.