The Internet has made a vast number of resources available at the click of a mouse.  Frequently, in my posts, I refer you to some of the ones that I have used to develop some of the information in the discussion I am having.  But, the fact is that I often discover several useful and free resources every week.  So, I thought I would share them with you as I find them including some suggestions for their use.  I'll begin the title of these posts with the catch phrase Resources for the Resourceful followed by the type of resource I will be highlighting to make them easier to pick out if you are looking at the archive.

Frequently, I find myself wanting to get degree data for a location to plot along with normalized utility consumption data when when I am performing a utility consumption analysis.  Here are some examples.

Its not too hard to find average values for a particular location on one of the National Weather Service websites.  But, comparing energy consumption for a specific time period with average degree day data is less desirable than comparing it with data that is specific to the energy consumption period since you are trying to correlate specific consumption patterns with specific climate events.  

If you happen to have hourly climate data for the period you are interested in, you can use a spreadsheet to generate your own degree day for the location.  But that can be hard to come by too.  Having the link to the Weather Data Depot on your desktop can be quite handy in such a situation.  Here is a screen shot from the site.

Not only does the site have degree data available for a large number of locations in North America, it presents the data in a number of useful formats that will allow you to quickly compare the current pattern with previous patterns.  In addition, it allows you to choose the balance point temperature to meet your needs and create a report.  The report can be cut and pasted into Excel^® so you can graph the degree day information along with the your own personal information for use in your analysis and reports.