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Dear WRF Users,<br>
<br>
I'd like to let you know about a geospatial database that I've just
released as an open source, GPL3 project on GitHub called <a
href="https://github.com/sailorsenergy/windb2">WinDB2</a>, i.e.
the wind database, version 2. The project contains a schema for
storing environmental data in a PostgreSQL/PostGIS database, along
with WRF post-processing scripts written in Python. I currently use
WinDB2 as the backend for my <a href="http://www.sailtactics.com/">200-m
resolution sailing forecasts for San Francisco Bay</a> and also
rely on WinDB2 for storing years worth of WRF runs for wind resource
assessment research and consulting.<br>
<br>
Some ideal use cases for WinDB2 are:<br>
<ul>
<li>Web mapping and GIS<br>
</li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://postgis.net/">PostGIS</a>/WinDB2 is a great
backend for <a href="http://geoserver.org/">Geoserver</a>, a
powerful web mapping utility. You can create beautiful and
interactive mapping tiles with fresh data automatically.
Here's an <a
href="http://www.sailtactics.com/forecast/wind-central-bay-past-2-days">example
map</a> that uses Geoserver and WinDB2 to create daily
sailing forecasts.</li>
<li>You can easily output long-term spatial statistics<i> </i>as
a GIS Shapefile to create maps in your favorite GIS.<br>
<br>
</li>
</ul>
<li>Wind resource assessment</li>
<ul>
<li>Storing many years of WRF winds at various heights over a
wind farm or region. WinDB2 includes the ability to
interpolate WRF wind fields to arbitrary heights.</li>
<li>Storing many years of WRF wind data in a single database,
with the ability to write simple SQL queries for analysis that
can span years of data.</li>
<li>Ability to store various types observational data to easily
create validation time series.</li>
<li>Easily perform quality control on years of WRF runs to
identify gaps in the data.<br>
<br>
</li>
</ul>
<li>Remote supercomputer, remote or local database</li>
<ul>
<li>Often your WRF data exists remotely but you want to analyze
it locally. By running a simple Python script where your WRF
data resides, you can easily populate your PostgreSQL/WinDB2
database anywhere on the Internet.</li>
<li>You can even set up an Amazon Web Services database instance
if you don't want to run your own local PostgreSQL server or
deal with the networking hassles.</li>
<li>If your colleagues want their own local copy of the data,
you can easily upload to their WinDB2 also.<br>
<br>
</li>
</ul>
<li>Long-term archival</li>
<ul>
<li>Often you only care about a small subset of the WRF output.
WinDB2 allows you to specify a <i>masked area</i> via a
Shapefile and only stores your data at locations you care
about the most (e.g. a wind farm, field site, observation
locations, over water/land, etc...).</li>
<li>You can keep years of WRF data online with only GBs of
storage by storing only the heights and locations you care
about the most. I've been keeping daily, 1000 m and 200 m
resolution WRF forecasts for San Francisco Bay online since
January 2014 (2.5 years) with only 60 GB of storage.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<p>My hope is that WinDB2 becomes a community project and that
WinDB2 can be generalized to many different use cases. Please
contact me directly with any general questions and submit requests
for improvement or bugs to the <a
href="https://github.com/sailorsenergy/windb2">GitHub project</a>.
Please also "star" the project on GitHub to increase the project's
visibility. Thanks for your interest.<br>
</p>
<p>Cheers,<br>
Mike<br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
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<td valign="center"><img alt="Sail Tactics logo"
src="cid:part7.04090009.03040901@sailtactics.com"
height="118" width="90"><br>
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<td valign="top">Mike Dvorak, PhD<br>
Founder<br>
Sail Tactics, LLC<br>
Corpus Christi, TX<br>
+1 650-454-5243<br>
<a href="http://sailtactics.com">http://sailtactics.com</a><br>
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