The Weekly Data Panel sits within the main application window and controls the display of weekly averaged trends in the hourly weather data. You can open and/or close this panel by clicking in its title area. If you click on the status icon on the right-hand side, the panel will open/close without affecting any of the other panels around it.
Average weekly data is displayed on a 3D graph. Simply right-click and drag in the drawing area to rotate or pan your view.
Graphical Display
Basically, many different graphs can be produced from hourly weather data sets. Of initial importance, however, is the visualisation of both seasonal and diurnal trends in the data. These can be displayed by graphing weeks of the year in one direction, in this case the X axis, and hours of the day along the adjacent Y axis. Variations in level within the selected data is then displayed using a colour intensity and, in the case of the three-dimensional graphs used here, as a displacement in the Z axis.
The above graph shows an example plot of annual temperature data, displayed as weekly averages. This plot clearly shows the traditional 'saddle' shape characteristic of climates in the southern hemisphere with a significant seasonal variation in temperature. The plot also shows daily or diurnal temperature variation along the 'Hours' axis. These graphs can be used to display annual temperature, humidity, solar radiation, wind speed and rainfall. The table below provides links to a range of different climate data sets displayed in this format.
Panel Controls
The following is a description of the items available in this control panel.
Weather Parameter
Select the type of data that is displayed in the current graph. This selection is also available if you right-click in the graph.
Averaged Trend
Weather data often contains one or two spurious days each week with short-term extreme conditions. WeaTool uses statistical analysis to cancel out these spurious inconsistencies, identifying bi-directional trends within the data. Uncheck this box if you want to disable this trend analysis and view straight weekly averages.
Hidden Surface
Check this box to display the grid as an opaque surface, such that grid squares closest to the view obscure those further away. When in colour shading mode, unchecking this box simply hides the grid lines.
Colour Shading
Checking this box simply fills each grid square with a colour representative of its relative height. Different colour schemes are used to designate different values. For example, blue-red indicates temperature, yellow radiation, green humidity, grey wind speed, etc.
Contours
Check this box to display contour lines within the grid. The height increment of each contour is selected automatically to best fit the data. If not in colour shading mode, each contour line is colour coded based on its height.
Vertical Scale
Use these buttons to increase or decrease the vertical scale of the graph to highlight peaks, etc. This has no effect when in multi-graph mode as they are automatically adjusted to fit as they are drawn.
Show All
This button toggles a multi-graph display that shows a comparison of all 9 data values at once. You can rotate each graph, however pan and scale settings have no effect as the graphs are automatically adjusted to fit as they are drawn.