The wind rose module
The wind rose module shows where the wind at a site comes from, how often and how strong it is. It has two diagrams: the annual wind rose, with one rose for the whole year and one for each season, and the daily wind rose, which splits each season into four times of day (0:00 to 6:00, 6:00 to 12:00, 12:00 to 18:00 and 18:00 to 0:00).
Both draw 16 directions and six speed bands, from below 2.5 m/s to over 10 m/s, grouped from the Beaufort scale, and link each band to the outdoor activities it stays comfortable for: long sitting, sitting, standing, walking, biking, and unsafe. They are on the Free plan with the nearest weather station's data; projects on paid plans add site-specific data, directional outdoor comfort with windbreak guidance, and future climate scenarios on the annual wind rose.
How to use it
- Search for an address or click on the map, or open a project.
- Choose the Climate data tab and open the Annual Wind Rose Diagram or the Daily Wind Rose Diagram.
- In a project, switch at the top between the weather station's data and the site-specific data.
How to read it
The spokes
Each spoke points to where the wind comes from, and its length, read against the rings, is the share of the year's hours with wind from there. Its colours split those hours into the speed bands: a long spoke with orange and red near its tip is a frequent wind that is often strong.
Seasons and times of day
The yearly rose shows the prevailing wind, the seasonal roses whether it turns between summer and winter, and the daily roses when in the day it blows: a summer afternoon breeze can ventilate a building, a cold winter morning wind matters for entrances and terraces.
In design
Read the speed bands against what each outdoor space is for: a terrace for long sitting needs most of its hours in the lowest band. Keep entrances and outdoor spaces out of the strongest winds, open the building to ventilating breezes, and decide where a windbreak pays off.
Frequently asked questions
How do I make a wind rose for a specific location?
In C4B, search for the address or click on the map, and open the wind rose in the Climate data tab. Other tools start from a nearby airport's records (Iowa Environmental Mesonet), from weather model data (meteoblue) or from an EPW file (CBE Clima Tool, EPW Insights); the comparison below sets them side by side.
How do you read a wind rose?
In the usual meteorological convention, each spoke points to the direction the wind blows from. Its length shows how often the wind comes from that direction, and coloured bands show how often it blows at each speed. Calm hours are usually reported separately, as a percentage.
Why use seasonal or hourly wind roses?
An annual wind rose mixes every hour of the year. Splitting it by season or time of day often reveals what matters for design, such as a summer afternoon breeze useful for ventilation or a cold winter wind from a different direction.
Is the wind rose on the Free plan?
Yes. The annual and daily wind roses are on the Free plan, with the nearest weather station's data. Projects on paid plans add site-specific data, directional outdoor comfort with windbreak guidance, and future climate scenarios on the annual wind rose.
Is airport wind data representative of my site?
Often only approximately. Airports are open and flat, while a site among buildings, in a valley or near the coast can see different directions and lower speeds. Use airport or model wind roses to understand the prevailing pattern, and a specialist wind study for detailed effects around buildings.
Can I download the wind rose?
Not as a separate image or data file. In projects on paid plans, the annual and daily wind roses are part of the PDF report.
See your site's climate before design begins
Pin any location and get climate, comfort and preliminary energy insight your whole team can read. Start with a 7-day free trial, or book a 30-minute demo.
Free plan; paid plans from €59/month (cancellation takes effect after 12 billing cycles) or €599/year, with a 7-day free trial. No card required. If you add a card during the trial, the plan is charged when the trial ends; otherwise your account moves to the Free plan. See all plans.
How C4B compares with other wind rose tools
Last checked 21 October 2026
At a glance
| Tool | Type | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iowa Environmental Mesonet wind roses | Web app | Free (public domain images and data) | Free, customisable wind roses from airport weather station records, in the US and abroad. |
| meteoblue climate diagrams | Website | Free to view; hourly history since 1940 is a paid product (history+) | An instant annual wind rose for any place on Earth, including places with no weather station. |
| CBE Clima Tool | Web app, open source | Free | Free annual, seasonal and custom-period wind roses from any EPW file. |
| C4B | Web app | Free plan; paid plans from €59/month (cancellation takes effect after 12 billing cycles) or €599/year, with a 7-day free trial | Wind roses for an address, read in terms of outdoor comfort and design. |
| WRPLOT View | Desktop app (Windows) | Free (freeware) | Engineers and air-quality specialists plotting wind roses from their own meteorological data files. |
| EPW Insights | Web app, open source (AGPL-3.0) | Free | A free interactive wind rose from an EPW file, coloured by temperature or humidity. |
| Ladybug Tools | Plugins for Grasshopper (Rhino), open source | Free and open source; requires Rhino (a commercial Rhino 8 licence is US$995 in North America) | Wind roses of any hourly data, linked to a Rhino model and a parametric workflow. |
How to choose
The data matters more than the drawing. Airport stations measure the wind in open, flat surroundings, which is reliable but may not represent a sheltered urban site or a valley a few kilometres away. Model-based wind roses exist for any place, but grids several to tens of kilometres wide smooth out local effects such as channelling between hills or sea breezes.
Look at the period and the filters. A wind rose for every hour of the year can hide what matters for design: the summer afternoon breeze you want for ventilation, or the winter wind that makes an entrance or terrace unpleasant. Tools that split the data by season, month or hour of day are more useful than a single annual rose.
Check the speed bins and conventions. Beaufort bands relate directly to comfort and outdoor activities; engineering work may need m/s or knots, a clear share of calm hours, and a choice between showing where the wind comes from and where it goes.
Finally, think about where the wind rose goes next: an image for a report, raw data for further analysis, or an input to outdoor comfort and ventilation studies.
Iowa Environmental Mesonet wind roses
Free, customisable wind roses from airport weather station records, in the US and abroad.
- Ready-made annual and monthly wind roses for airport stations in its archive, including international airports.
- The custom tool filters by date range, month or hour, with 8 to 36 direction bins and your own speed bins in knots, mph or m/s.
- Choice of meteorological or engineering direction convention, and output as PNG, PDF or SVG.
Good to know
- Record length varies by station (Barcelona airport's starts in 1972, for example), and a custom rose can take a few minutes to generate.
meteoblue climate diagrams
An instant annual wind rose for any place on Earth, including places with no weather station.
- The wind rose shows how many hours per year the wind blows from each direction.
- Based on 30 years of hourly simulations from meteoblue's NEMS weather model, at about 30 km resolution.
- Free diagrams under a Creative Commons BY-NC licence; commercial use needs a separate licence.
Good to know
- meteoblue notes that its 30 km data may not reproduce local winds or differences in urban, mountainous or coastal areas.
CBE Clima Tool
Free annual, seasonal and custom-period wind roses from any EPW file.
- Wind roses for the whole year, each season, daily and custom periods.
- Heat maps of hourly wind speed and direction across the year.
- EPW files for more than 27,500 locations, or upload your own.
C4B
We make C4BWind roses for an address, read in terms of outdoor comfort and design.
- An annual wind rose with 16 directions and six speed bands grouped from the Beaufort scale, each linked to the outdoor activities it suits.
- Daily wind roses at four times of day for each season.
- Available on the Free plan with the nearest station's data; projects on paid plans add site-specific data, directional outdoor comfort with windbreak guidance, and future-climate overlays.
Good to know
- Wind data comes from a weather station or a reanalysis grid cell (kilometres across), not a microclimate model; C4B does not export chart images or CSV/JSON data (EPW weather files are downloadable on the Technical and Enterprise plans).
WRPLOT View
Engineers and air-quality specialists plotting wind roses from their own meteorological data files.
- Wind rose plots and frequency analysis for several meteorological data formats.
- Version 8.0.2, for Windows 10 and 11.
Good to know
- Lakes Software does not offer technical support for its freeware.
EPW Insights
A free interactive wind rose from an EPW file, coloured by temperature or humidity.
- An interactive wind rose that can show temperature or humidity by direction, and a monthly grid of roses.
- Compares wind roses from two files or scenarios side by side.
- Runs locally in the browser, with nothing uploaded.
Ladybug Tools
Wind roses of any hourly data, linked to a Rhino model and a parametric workflow.
- The Wind Rose component plots any hourly data by wind direction, for example temperature or comfort, not only wind speed.
- Reads the wind data from imported EPW files.
Good to know
- Runs inside Rhino and Grasshopper, so it assumes a Rhino licence and some visual-scripting experience.
Sources
We make C4B. Information about the other tools comes from their official websites and documentation, checked on 21 October 2026. Products and prices change, so check each vendor's site for the latest details. All product names belong to their respective owners.
- Iowa Environmental Mesonet: site wind roses (example: Barcelona)
- Iowa Environmental Mesonet: custom wind roses (example: Barcelona)
- Iowa Environmental Mesonet: ASOS data sources
- meteoblue: simulated historical climate (example: Basel)
- meteoblue: contact
- CBE Clima Tool documentation: Wind tab
- CBE Clima Tool documentation: overview
- WRPLOT View (Lakes Software)
- EPW Insights source code and README
- Ladybug Tools primer: component index
- Ladybug Tools installation wiki
- Rhino pricing, North America
Related on C4B
Wind rose
Annual and daily wind roses showing wind direction and speed, by season and time of day.
Outdoor comfort (UTCI)
UTCI outdoor thermal comfort heatmaps by season and hour, and strategies for sun and wind exposure.
Site climate analysis
A full climate study for any location in the world, run in the browser from a single address or map pin.
C4B vs CBE Clima Tool
Both run in the browser. Clima is free and analyses EPW files; C4B works from any address and adds future climate, energy and PDF reports.
C4B vs Ladybug Tools
Ladybug is a free, flexible Grasshopper toolkit; C4B is a ready-made browser workflow from an address to a climate report.