[Bldg-sim] Tracking Hurricane Florence through the Wilmington weather file

Mon Sep 17 14:24:36 PDT 2018

Nick,

Nice to read your comments.  The reason I'm skeptical of attempts to unilaterally weed out 
extreme events from "typical year" data is that our definition of what comprises an 
extreme event can change over time.   If we are to believe the scientific consensus on 
climate change, extreme events would be more frequent and longer lasting in the future.  
If the frequency gets high enough so that there's one extreme event a month - not 
necessarily a hurricane but rather a tropical storm or heat wave - then shouldn't such an 
event be reflected in the "typical year" weather file?  I'd like to see the "typical year" 
methodology modified from producing the most typical weather of the past X number of 
years, to what would be  the the most likely typical weather for the future.

Joe

Joe Huang
White Box Technologies, Inc.
346 Rheem Blvd., Suite 205A
Moraga CA 94556
yjhuang at whiteboxtechnologies.com
http://weather.whiteboxtechnologies.com for simulation-ready weather data
(o) (925)388-0265
(c) (510)928-2683
"building energy simulations at your fingertips"

On 9/17/2018 12:24 PM, Nicholas Caton wrote:
>
> To layer on to and supplement Joe’s response,  I think another neat factoid to consider 
> is that while the TMY protocol generally does not exclude any specific months on the 
> merits of “extreme” weather/climate events (which is good and rigorous from a 
> statistical viewpoint), there were two historical volcanic events that have caused 
> specific periods to be excluded from files in the NREL TMY3 set:  The eruptions of El 
> Chichón, Mexico in 1982 and Mt. Pinatubo, Philippines in 1991.
>
> These events had substantial effects in reducing solar radiation measured in the United 
> States due to aerosols pushed into the atmosphere, and as a result there are a net of ~6 
> years pulled out of the historical record to exclude periods following those events, for 
> the purpose of establishing the months of data considered for the TMY “pools.”
>
> A fun (?) takeaway is that when the next major volcanic event occurs, we as a community 
> are going to have a lot to talk about in considering the merits and application of the 
> established TMY protocol against some other approach to incorporate the weather 
> measurements on record for those excluded periods!
>
> ~Nick
>
> *Nick Caton, P.E., BEMP*
>
> Senior Energy Engineer
> Regional Energy Engineering Manager
>
> Energy and Sustainability Services
> Schneider Electric
>
> 	
>
> D 913.564.6361
> M 785.410.3317
> F 913.564.6380
> E nicholas.caton at schneider-electric.com <mailto:nicholas.caton at schneider-electric.com>
>
> 	
>
> 15200 Santa Fe Trail Drive
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>
> *From:* Bldg-sim <bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org> *On Behalf Of *Joe Huang via 
> Bldg-sim
> *Sent:* Sunday, September 16, 2018 12:20 PM
> *To:* Linda Lawrie <linda at fortlawrie.com>
> *Cc:* bldg-sim at onebuilding.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Bldg-sim] Tracking Hurricane Florence through the Wilmington weather file
>
> [External email: Use caution with links and attachments]
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Larry, Linda, others,
>
> Average daily wind speed has always been one of the parameters used to select "typical 
> months" in the TMY methodology used by NREL that others like me have followed to create 
> the IWEC2s, etc. Its weight, however, is low compared to the cumulative weights for 
> temperature (average, max, min dry-bulb), humidity (average, max, min dewpoint), and 
> solar ( average global horizontal and sometimes also direct normal irradiance). The 
> other thing to consider is that the TMY methodology does not exclude any month due to 
> outliers, but looks at the difference in the cumulative distribution of these daily 
> parameters to the long-term distribution, and picks that month with the best 
> correspondence of CFDs. Thus, it is possible that a month with an extreme event might 
> still be selected, but the fact that a hurricane affects all 8 or 9 parameters and can 
> extend over several days makes it unlikely. On the other hand, if the statistics were to 
> pick a month with a hurricane, is that really a problem? One of the things I like about 
> the TMY methodology is that it aims to pick a month with the most representative 
> distribution of conditions, not the blandest month with no peaks and valleys.
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
>
> On Sep 16, 2018, at 7:52 AM, Linda Lawrie via Bldg-sim <bldg-sim at lists.onebuilding.org 
> <mailto:bldg-sim at lists.onebuilding.org>> wrote:
>
>     Larry,
>
>     Wind Speed is not usually one of the items for selection of TMYs but one would hope
>     that other factors might disregard those events/months.
>
>     Linda
>
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