Data
The main component of data collection for this project was the weather data obtained from the Environment Canada website. The raw data presented below was entered into an Excell file and geocoded into ArcMap as x,y data using the geographic coordinate system WGS 1984. The data was then exported as a shapefile and projected using ArcToolbox to NAD 1983 UTM_10N. The shapefile was then imported into Idrisi using the shapeidr conversion option to display the image as vector point data.
The weather data avaliable had limitations as there were often missing values in the records. Wind data was particularly difficult to find because so few stations in metro Vancouver are able to measure wind. Despite only having five measuring stations, observations were taken from five major wind storms between 2001-2006. During the hour of maxium wind velocity, the direction of wind was very consistant throughout the different events and mean values of this direction were gathered.
For precipitation and temperature measurements there were more records avaliable so I collected yearly totals for 2007 compiled in the following table.
ID |
Location |
Elevation (m) |
Total Precipitation (mm) |
Average Temperature |
Total Snow (cm) |
1 |
SFU |
365.8 |
na |
9.3 |
104.5 |
2 |
Cloverdale |
50 |
na |
10.47 |
84.3 |
3 |
Tsawwassen |
2.4 |
1048.7 |
10.78 |
21.6 |
4 |
Fort Langley |
76 |
1909.7 |
10.04 |
109.4 |
5 |
Haney |
147 |
2174.5 |
9.48 |
76.2 |
6 |
Grouse mtn |
1127.8 |
3050.8 |
4.91 |
941 |
7 |
N.Vancouver |
182.9 |
2735 |
na |
66 |
8 |
Pitt Meadows |
5 |
1911.4 |
10.11 |
na |
9 |
Port Moody |
129.5 |
2407.9 |
9.52 |
95 |
10 |
Sandheads |
0 |
na |
10.4 |
na |
11 |
YVR |
4.3 |
1322.4 |
10.23 |
37.7 |
12 |
W.Vancouver |
168 |
2281.9 |
9.77 |
na |
13 |
White Rock |
13 |
1327.2 |
10.54 |
na |
The rest of the data was collected from the SIS S: drive data warehouse
gvrd_dem: WGS 1984 UTM_10N, raster, 20003
shorelines2: NAD 1983 UTM_10N, polyline, 2001
gvrd_lu2001: WGS 1984 UTM_10N, raster, 2001