Is it me or it's always windy?
Now, in the spring of 2022, very often when I go outside I feel like it's more windy than it has been in the past years. Is it really so or does it only seem like it?
The data used in this analysis is the hourly weather data published by the Estonian Environment Agency. I took the wind speed data from 2011 to 2022, calculated the daily mean based on noon to 8pm and compared it to previous years.
First of all, let's take a look at how the wind speed has varied over the years. Below is a chart that shows the daily mean wind speed from 2011 to 2021. As you might notice, summer seems to be a little less windy with less variance, but overall, it's rather stable.
Let's now look at 2022 and zoom into the first four months of the year.
Below is a chart where the red line shows you the daily mean for 2022, and the blue line is the mean based on 2011-2021. Grey lines are years 2011-2021 individually. As you can see, there are some days in 2022 that have been more windy than the historical mean, but there are also days that have been less windy.
When plotting the same daily data on a heatmap, we the calendar view below. Red days are more windy and green days less windy (compared to 2011-2021 daily mean). When we count the number of days during this 4 month period that have been more windy and less windy in 2022, then we get 61 and 59 respectively, meaning that the distribution of more and less windy days is equal.
So, has the spring of 2022 been more windy than usual? It doesn't seem like it.