<p>I found good datasets on the <a href="http://www.eumetsat.int/website/home/index.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">EUMETSAT</a> and <a href="http://marine.copernicus.eu/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">CMEMS</a> websites for anyone else who needs wind direction data. They both have global data sets for both wind speed and direction above the ocean surface and I've found the ASCAT data (available on both sites) to be of a high quality. </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-03-06T19:43:48.440Z
Please [edit] your answer and add the links (not just to the website, but to the pages describing the data). It would even be greater if you included (quoted )what kind of wind direction data can be found there.
Jan Doggen
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-03-06T19:54:56.433Z
Agree with Jan that links will be very useful.  But very glad you took the time to come back here and leave this for others with the same question in the future.  Nothing better than the advice of someone who has faced the same needs/troubles!
JeopardyTempest
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-03-06T17:34:21.947Z
2017-03-06T20:40:25.817Z
2017-03-06T20:40:25.817Z
RH_data_maths
<p>You can download the data from the CRU-NCEP database <a href="https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/hrg/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/hrg/</a> 
CRU stand for Climate Research Unit and it has the most accurate historical data available to the public. They are reanalyzed data from meteorological stations and ships. The highest resolution available is 0.5 latitude * 0.5 longitude degree grid. And for temporal resolution they have 6-hourly and daily. The data is in NetCDF format which is a format most map processing data use. If you don't know how to handle ncdf you could use Google Earth as well <a href="https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/hrg/cru_ts_3.23/ge/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/hrg/cru_ts_3.23/ge/</a>  . </p>

<p>To know more how the data is derived you can read this paper. Hope it helps. <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.3711/abstract" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.3711/abstract</a> </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-02-17T16:08:49.840Z
2017-02-17T16:08:49.840Z
Felix Leung
<p>I'm trying to validate some work I've been doing on extracting wind direction measurements from data. </p>

<p>Where can I access historical wind direction data online that gives ~hourly measurements? Specifically I'm looking for measurements in July 2014 off the south coast of France. </p>

<p>If the time resolution is $&lt;$hourly, that's better than nothing! </p>

<p>Thank you.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-02-17T13:47:17.603Z
If you speak French, you might try to find data at [MeteoFrance](http://www.meteofrance.com/).
daniel.heydebreck
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-02-17T13:54:41.567Z
The [ebas Database](http://ebas.nilu.no), which is for air quality measurement data, also contains a few meteorological data sets. There is wind direction data available (matrix=met, component=wind_direction) for 8 French stations in July 2014. Unfortunately, none of the stations is located directly at the southern coast of France. But maybe it is better than nothing.
daniel.heydebreck
<wind><open-data>
Wind direction data
RH_data_maths
# Wind direction data

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-02-17)

I'm trying to validate some work I've been doing on extracting wind direction measurements from data.

Where can I access historical wind direction data online that gives ~hourly measurements? Specifically I'm looking for measurements in July 2014 off the south coast of France.

If the time resolution is $<$hourly, that's better than nothing!

Thank you.

**Tags:** wind, open-data

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: If you speak French, you might try to find data at [MeteoFrance](http://www.meteofrance.com/).  
> **username_1**: The [ebas Database](http://ebas.nilu.no), which is for air quality measurement data, also contains a few meteorological data sets. There is wind direction data available (matrix=met, component=wind_direction) for 8 French stations in July 2014. Unfortunately, none of the stations is located directly at the southern coast of France. But maybe it is better than nothing.  

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_0 on 2017-03-06. Score: 1 | Accepted answer

I found good datasets on the [EUMETSAT](http://www.eumetsat.int/website/home/index.html) and [CMEMS](http://marine.copernicus.eu/) websites for anyone else who needs wind direction data. They both have global data sets for both wind speed and direction above the ocean surface and I've found the ASCAT data (available on both sites) to be of a high quality.

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: Please [edit] your answer and add the links (not just to the website, but to the pages describing the data). It would even be greater if you included (quoted )what kind of wind direction data can be found there.  
> **username_3**: Agree with Jan that links will be very useful.  But very glad you took the time to come back here and leave this for others with the same question in the future.  Nothing better than the advice of someone who has faced the same needs/troubles!  

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### Answer by username_4 on 2017-02-17. Score: 3

You can download the data from the CRU-NCEP database <https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/hrg/>
CRU stand for Climate Research Unit and it has the most accurate historical data available to the public. They are reanalyzed data from meteorological stations and ships. The highest resolution available is 0.5 latitude \* 0.5 longitude degree grid. And for temporal resolution they have 6-hourly and daily. The data is in NetCDF format which is a format most map processing data use. If you don't know how to handle ncdf you could use Google Earth as well <https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/hrg/cru_ts_3.23/ge/> .

To know more how the data is derived you can read this paper. Hope it helps. <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.3711/abstract>


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