Center for the Built Environment

Building loads are calculated using hourly weather tapes from the nearest available first-order weather station, or from data summarized from such tapes. These weather stations are ofter remote from the building site, and in different terrain. The climate experienced on site may be significantly different from that on the weather tape, and as such a result the energy use simulated for envelope-dominated buildings can contain substantial error.

A program is described that modifies hourly weather tape data to make them more closely approximate the climate found on building sites. The program is eventually intended to be used by designers, engineers and researchers, who will input both local climate data and a description of the building site's physical surrounding in order to make the data transformations. The method is only partially tested and is still under development.

In this paper, the approach used to modify hourly weather data is discussed, the method of user input is presented, and the individual algorithms are summarized. Future refinements to the program and validation studies are outlined.