Wind & vector fields
Wind as data: GFS and HRRR winds from AWS, u and v components, speed and direction, arrows, barbs and streamlines, station observations, wind roses and vorticity.
Wind is a vector: a speed and a direction at every point, stored by weather models as two components, u towards the east and v towards the north. Every wind map is a choice about how to draw those vectors, as arrows, barbs, streamlines or colour, and every calculation is a choice about how to combine them, because directions cannot be averaged like numbers and a metre per second east is not the same distance on a longitude-latitude map as a metre per second north.
The guides here use real data throughout: the GFS model on AWS, downloaded a field at a time by byte range, checked against the National Hurricane Center’s best track for Hurricane Helene and against airport observations from NOAA’s Integrated Surface Database. GFS put Helene within a grid cell of its true position but at 77 knots against the observed 120.
🧭 Start with the concepts
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⚙️ Then do the task
Step-by-step walkthroughs with code you can copy and adapt.
- How to Download GFS Wind Data From AWS in Python
- How to Calculate Wind Speed and Direction From U and V in Python
- How to Draw a Wind Arrow Map in Python
- How to Plot Wind Barbs in Python
- How to Draw Wind Streamlines in Python
- How to Read HRRR Wind Data in Python
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