Monitor wind conditions for offshore wind leases

Offshore wind energy is growing in popularity as a way for the U.S. to generate renewable energy. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that offshore wind has the potential to produce three times the U.S.'s total electricity consumption.

But while there is enormous potential for offshore wind, there are also many risks facing project development, like hurricanes. Offshore wind turbines are engineered to withstand the high waves and wind speeds that come with hurricanes, and technology is continually improving. To better understand the conditions that turbines might face, you'll use multidimensional weather data in ArcGIS Pro to show wind gust conditions during a hurricane. Between July 8-10 of 2021, Hurricane Elsa traveled up the eastern seaboard, passing through several offshore wind leases and close to many others.

This tutorial was last tested on May 15, 2024, using ArcGIS Pro 3.2. If you're using a different version of ArcGIS Pro, you may encounter different functionality and results.

Requirements

• ArcGIS Pro Standard or Advanced (see options for software access)

Monitor wind conditions for offshore wind leases

Set up a project 

You'll first set up a new project in ArcGIS Pro, and load data into it.

1. Download the tutorial data.

   Note:

   This file is 1.8 GB and may take some time to download.

   Most web browsers download files to your computer's Downloads folder by default.

2. Double-click the Hurricane_Elsa project package to open ArcGIS Pro. If necessary, sign in with a licensed ArcGIS account.

   If you don't have access to ArcGIS Pro or an ArcGIS organizational account, see options for software access.

   The project package opens to a map showing two layers. The Outer Continental Shelf Active Renewable Energy Leases dataset is provided by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The map also shows the path of Hurricane Elsa from the Historical Hurricane Tracks layer. This layer is published from NOAA data and is available in ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World, an online repository of authoritative geospatial data.

   Note:

   A .ppkx file is an ArcGIS Pro project package and may contain maps, data, and other files that you can open in ArcGIS Pro. Learn more about managing .ppkx files in this guide.

3. On the map, click one of the Wind Lease polygons.

   A pop-up opens showing more information about the project name, lease date, owner, and more.

4. Close the pop-up.

   The ArcGIS Pro project also contains a folder with 15 files of weather data in the GRIB format. You'll learn more about the GRIB format later in the tutorial.

Next, you’ll add weather data from the multidimensional GRIB files.

Extract data from a multidimensional weather dataset

In the domain of geospatial analysis, while single-variable or 2D data can be packaged in shapefiles or GeoTIFF files, more complex multidimensional data requires more complex data structures. This is the case for weather datasets, which usually contain data for an entire geographic area, multiple variables, and multiple points in time. The most common data structures in meteorology and climatology are GRIB, netCDF, and HDF, which ArcGIS Pro can read when formatted to World Meteorological Organization (WMO) or Climate and Forecast (CF) standards.

This GRIB files you downloaded at the beginning of the tutorial come from the High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) dataset. Provided by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), HRRR is a weather model for the entire United States that is refreshed every hour. It contains many variables that provide information on temperature, wind speed, precipitation, and other meteorological data. The subset you downloaded contains data for the continental U.S., for every hour between 12:00 p.m. on July 9 and 2:00 a.m. UTC on July 10.

Because HRRR data contains so much information, it is difficult to look at all of it at the same time. Instead, you'll extract specific elements of interest to you to display them on the map.

First, you’ll look at sustained wind speed at a single point in time. To do that, you'll extract data from the GRIB dataset and add it as a single raster to the map. Each cell of the raster will contain a wind speed value in meters per second.

1. On the ribbon, on the Map tab, in the Layer group, click the Add Data drop-down button and choose Multidimensional Raster Layer.

   

2. For Input File, Mosaic Dataset or Image Service, click the Import Variables button.

   

3. In the Import variables from NetCDF, GRIB, or HDF files window, browse to the Hurricane_Elsa project folder, expand the commondata folder, expand the userdata folder, and double-click the HRRR folder.

   

4. In the HRRR folder, choose the last grib2 file, hrrr.t23z.wrfsfcf00.grib2 and click OK.

   This file contains the data for the last one-hour period of July 9: 11:00 p.m. UTC.

   A list of all the meteorological variables contained in that dataset is added to the Select Variables table. The variables are alphabetized and accompanied by a short description. The wind speed variable, WIND@HTGL, is of interest to you.

5. For Select Variables, check the WIND@HTGL box.

   

   The wind data draws on the map. You'll rename the layer to a more intuitive name.

6. In the Contents pane, click the hrrr.t23z.wrfsfcf00.grib2_WIND@HTGL layer to select it, and click it one more time. Rename it to Wind Speed (m/s).
7. Click a few points close to the active lease sites to view information about them in the pop-up window.

   

   At 11:00 p.m. UTC on July 9, 2021, this area experienced wind speeds around 12.19 m/s.

8. Close the pop-up window.

   Now you’ll look at the variation in wind gust data between July 9 and 10, 2021. Wind gusts are bursts of wind speed increases. High wind gusts could damage turbines, so they need to be monitored.

   You’ll extract wind gust data from the GRIB files for every hour and put it in a multidimensional mosaic dataset to add it to your map. A mosaic is a way of organizing multiple dimensions of data (time, space, variable, band, and so on) into a single composite in your geodatabase.

   First, you'll create an empty mosaic dataset to use as a container for your data.

9. In the Contents pane, uncheck the Wind speed (m/s) raster to turn it off.

   

10. On the ribbon, click the Analysis tab. In the Geoprocessing group, click Tools.

    

11. In the Geoprocessing pane that appears, search for and select Create Mosaic Dataset.

    

12. On the Create Mosaic Dataset tool, enter the following parameters:

    • For Output Location, click Browse. In the window that appears, click Databases, choose Hurricane_Elsa.gdb, and click OK.
    • For Mosaic Dataset Name, type WindGust.
    • For Coordinate System, choose Current Map [Map].

    

13. Click Run.

    Next, you'll add the wind gust data to this mosaic container.

14. In the Geoprocessing pane, click the back arrow.

    

15. Search for and select Add Rasters To Mosaic Dataset.
16. In the Add Rasters To Mosaic Dataset tool, for Mosaic Dataset, choose WindGust. For Raster Type, choose GRIB.
17. For Input Data, click File and choose Folder. Under Folder, click Browse

    

18. Browse to the HRRR tutorial data folder. Select it and click OK.

    The folder is added to the data box and designated a GRIB file type. Once the folder is chosen, you can specify the variable to pull from the multidimensional GRIB dataset.

19. Next to Raster Type, click the Properties button.

    

    The Raster Type Properties window appears with information about the GRIB files in the folder.

20. Click the Variables tab and check the box for GUST@SFC, which represents wind speed. Click OK.

    

    The Raster Type field updates to include a file path with the GUST@SFC variable.

21. Expand Raster Processing and check Calculate Statistics.

    

22. Click Run.

    The data is added to the mosaic and draws on the map. Because you chose the entire HRRR folder (and not a specific GRIB file, as you had done for the Wind speed layer), the data for all 15 hours present in the HRRR folder has been added to the mosaic. To view one hour of data at a time, you’ll use the Multidimensional tab.

23. On the ribbon, click the Multidimensional contextual tab. In the Current Display Slice group, for StdTime, choose one of the images.

    

Next, you'll view it as an animation over time.

Animate and symbolize a multidimensional wind gust layer

The WindGust mosaic layer contains wind gust speed data for the continental U.S. for 15 hours between July 9-10, 2021. In this section, you'll view this data as an animation, and choose an appropriate symbolization. First, you'll check the information about the mosaic content.

1. In the Contents pane, expand the WindGust mosaic layer and double-click Image.

   

   The Layer Properties window appears. This window contains information about the mosaicked image.

2. In the Layer Properties window, click the Source tab and expand Multidimensional Info. For Variables, expand gust@sfc (StdTime = 15) and StdTime.

   

   The description of the dataset is provided, including unit of measure (Unit), time interval (Interval), and time range (Extent). The Count of 15 means that there are 15 layers (or slices) of data within the mosaic, one for each hour.

3. Close the Layer Properties window.

   Next, you'll look at the wind gust data as a time animation. Because some of the data in your map can be displayed over time, a time slider has been added at the top of the map. On the ribbon, a Time tab has also appeared. These settings configure time for the map. You’ll use the Multidimensional contextual tab to use time settings specific to the layer.

4. If necessary, in the Contents pane, under WindGust, click Image to select it.
5. On the ribbon, on the Multidimensional tab, in the Current Display Slice group, click Play.

   

   You see the map change over the course of the 15 hours that the data covers. The current rainbow color ramp can be misleading, so you’ll choose a continuous ramp to better symbolize areas with stronger gusts.

6. In the Contents pane, expand the Image layer, if necessary, and right-click the color ramp.

   

7. Expand the drop-down list, click Show names, and choose the Purple-Blue (Continuous) color ramp.

   

8. Right-click the color ramp again, and click Reverse color scheme to display the strongest wind gusts in dark blue.

   

   The map updates to show higher wind gusts in dark blue, while the low gusts are shown in shades of light purple.

   

9. On the ribbon, click Play again to see the animation with the finalized symbolization.
10. Save the map.

Use a temporal profile chart to visualize multidimensional data

You'll now use a temporal profile chart to visualize the wind gust activity at specific oil drilling sites. A temporal profile chart serves as a basic analysis tool for multidimensional data representing a time series. It is a type of chart that provides in-depth visualization and analysis of your multidimensional raster data.

1. On the Multidimensional tab, in the Analysis group, click Temporal Profile.

   

   The Chart Properties pane appears, and a blank chart named Chart of Image is added to the project. The chart is also listed in the Contents pane under the WindGust mosaic layer.

   

   To populate the chart, you'll define your area of interest as the wind lease blocks.

   Note:

   When working with large multidimensional datasets, you may choose to store them as a CRF, or the default output raster format for geoprocessing tools that generate multidimensional rasters. The multidimensional CRF is a faster option when accessing many slices over time when performing temporal profiling.

2. If necessary, shrink the space occupied by the chart window to ensure that the map still has a reasonable size.

   

3. In the Chart Properties pane, for Define an area of interest, click the Rectangle tool.

   

4. On the map, draw a rectangle that roughly covers the active lease blocks.

   

   The chart populates, showing the average change in wind speed for the area of the rectangle you drew.

   

   Note:

   Depending on the area you selected, your chart may look different.

   The chart shows wind gusts peaking at over 14 m/s. To show conditions at individual leases, you can also use the Point tool.

5. In the Chart Properties pane, under Define an area of interest, in the Symbol column, click the point symbol for Location 1 and change the Transparency to 75 percent.

   

6. For Define an area of interest, click the Point tool

   

7. On the map, click one of the southernmost active leases and one of the northernmost active leases.

   

   The chart updates to show hourly conditions for the two points you added to the map. There are now three lines on the chart

   

   The northern lease represented on this chart, which was closer to the path of the hurricane, experienced higher wind wind gusts reaching more than 28 m/s. To better identify the charted data, you'll customize the labels.

   Note:

   There are many other options for temporal profile charts. For example, you can aggregate the hourly data to daily, monthly, and yearly time intervals and visualize the trends at different time scales. For more about customization and modifications that you can make to your chart, see Temporal profile chart .

8. In the Chart Properties pane, change the Label for Location 1 to Atlantic Lease Region.
9. Change the labels for Locations 2 and 3 to Northern Lease and Southern Lease, depending on how you placed the points on the map.

   

10. Save the project.

You now have a chart showing the gust speed at the location of your two lease sites as well as the overall average for the region. The highest wind gusts that these lease sites experienced over this period were 28.9 meters per second, or 56 knots. These are classified as storm and violent storm conditions , and probably require further checks for damage.

Using ArcGIS Pro, you can visualize many file formats and multiple variables for accurate modeling at precise locations.

You can find more tutorials such as this on the Introduction to Imagery and Remote Sensing page.

Acknowledgements

• HRRR data: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• Wind Lease Outlines : U.S. Department of Energy's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)
• Topographic Basemap: Esri, TomTom, Garmin, FAO, NOAA, USGS, © OpenStreetMap contributors, and the GIS User Community