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2023 National Offshore Wind data set (NOW-23)

Published by National Renewable Energy Laboratory | Department of Energy | Catalog Last Checked: May 07, 2026 at 08:25 PM | Dataset Last Updated: March 23, 2026 at 05:29 PM
The 2023 National Offshore Wind data set (NOW-23) is the latest wind resource data set for offshore regions in the United States, which supersedes, for its offshore component, the Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) Toolkit, which was published about a decade ago and is currently one of the primary resources for stakeholders conducting wind resource assessments in the continental United States. The NOW-23 data set was produced using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) version 4.2.1. A regional approach was used: for each offshore region, the WRF setup was selected based on validation against available observations. The WRF model was initialized with the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts 5 Reanalysis (ERA-5) data set, using a 6-hour refresh rate. The model is configured with an initial horizontal grid spacing of 6 km and an internal nested domain that refined the spatial resolution to 2 km. The model is run with 61 vertical levels, with 12 levels in the lower 300m of the atmosphere, stretching from 5 m to 45 m in height. The MYNN planetary boundary layer and surface layer schemes were used the North Atlantic, Mid Atlantic, Great Lakes, Hawaii, and North Pacific regions. On the other hand, using the YSU planetary boundary layer and MM5 surface layer schemes resulted in a better skill in the South Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and South Pacific regions. A more detailed description of the WRF model setup can be found in the WRF namelist files linked at the bottom of this page. For all regions, the NOW-23 data set coverage starts on January 1, 2000. For Hawaii and the North Pacific regions, NOW-23 goes until December 31, 2019. For the South Pacific region, the model goes until 31 December, 2022. For all other regions, the model covers until December 31, 2020. Outputs are available at 5 minute resolution, and for all regions we have also included output files at hourly resolution. The NOW-23 data are provided here as HDF5 files. Examples of how to use the HSDS Service to Access the NOW-23 files are linked below. A list of the variables included in the NOW-23 files is also linked below. No filters have been applied to the raw WRF output.

Resources

23 resources available

  • Great Lakes Offshore Wind Resource Data

    HTML
    Visit Page

  • Hawaii Offshore Wind Resource Data

    HTML
    Visit Page

  • Mid Atlantic Offshore Wind Resource Data

    HTML
    Visit Page

  • NOW-WAKES Mid Atlantic

    HTML
    Visit Page

  • North Pacific Offshore Wind Resource Data

    HTML
    Visit Page

  • California Offshore Wind Resource Data - Deprecated

    HTML
    Visit Page

  • Guam Offshore Wind Resource Data

    HTML
    Visit Page

  • Gulf of Mexico Wind Resource Data

    HTML
    Visit Page

  • North Atlantic Offshore Wind Resource Data

    HTML
    Visit Page

  • California Offshore Wind Resource Data

    HTML
    Visit Page

  • South Atlantic Offshore Wind Resource Data

    HTML
    Visit Page

  • Original WIND Toolkit Data

    HTML
    Visit Page

  • Data Access and HSDS Usage Examples

    HTML
    Visit Page

  • AWS Public Dataset Registry Page

    HTML
    Visit Page

  • WRG Files for NOW-23 Dataset v1 - Deprecated.zip

    ZIP
    Download

  • WRG Files for NOW-23 Dataset v2.zip.gz

    GZ
    Download

  • List of variables included in the NOW-23 HDF5 files.txt

    TXT
    Download

  • Map of Wind Regions - Deprecated.jpg

    JPG
    Download

  • Map of Wind Regions.png

    PNG
    Download

  • NOW-23 Sample Data Files.zip

    ZIP
    Download

  • WRF Namelist Files for NOW-23 Data v1.zip

    ZIP
    Download

  • WRF Namelist Files for NOW-23 Data v2.zip

    ZIP
    Download

  • WRF Namelist Files for NOW-23 Data v3.zip

    ZIP
    Download

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Complete Metadata
@type dcat:Dataset
accessLevel public
bureauCode 
[
  "019:20"
]
contactPoint 
{
  "fn": "Nicola Bodini",
  "@type": "vcard:Contact",
  "hasEmail": "mailto:nicola.bodini@nlr.gov"
}
dataQuality 
true
description The 2023 National Offshore Wind data set (NOW-23) is the latest wind resource data set for offshore regions in the United States, which supersedes, for its offshore component, the Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) Toolkit, which was published about a decade ago and is currently one of the primary resources for stakeholders conducting wind resource assessments in the continental United States. The NOW-23 data set was produced using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) version 4.2.1. A regional approach was used: for each offshore region, the WRF setup was selected based on validation against available observations. The WRF model was initialized with the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts 5 Reanalysis (ERA-5) data set, using a 6-hour refresh rate. The model is configured with an initial horizontal grid spacing of 6 km and an internal nested domain that refined the spatial resolution to 2 km. The model is run with 61 vertical levels, with 12 levels in the lower 300m of the atmosphere, stretching from 5 m to 45 m in height. The MYNN planetary boundary layer and surface layer schemes were used the North Atlantic, Mid Atlantic, Great Lakes, Hawaii, and North Pacific regions. On the other hand, using the YSU planetary boundary layer and MM5 surface layer schemes resulted in a better skill in the South Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and South Pacific regions. A more detailed description of the WRF model setup can be found in the WRF namelist files linked at the bottom of this page. For all regions, the NOW-23 data set coverage starts on January 1, 2000. For Hawaii and the North Pacific regions, NOW-23 goes until December 31, 2019. For the South Pacific region, the model goes until 31 December, 2022. For all other regions, the model covers until December 31, 2020. Outputs are available at 5 minute resolution, and for all regions we have also included output files at hourly resolution. The NOW-23 data are provided here as HDF5 files. Examples of how to use the HSDS Service to Access the NOW-23 files are linked below. A list of the variables included in the NOW-23 files is also linked below. No filters have been applied to the raw WRF output.
distribution 
[
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "Great Lakes Offshore Wind Resource Data",
    "format": "HTML",
    "accessURL": "https://data.openei.org/s3_viewer?bucket=nrel-pds-wtk&prefix=Great_Lakes%2F",
    "mediaType": "text/html",
    "description": "Includes h5 files containing offshore wind resource data for the Great Lakes. Data is available for the years 2000-2020."
  },
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "Hawaii Offshore Wind Resource Data",
    "format": "HTML",
    "accessURL": "https://data.openei.org/s3_viewer?bucket=nrel-pds-wtk&prefix=Hawaii%2F",
    "mediaType": "text/html",
    "description": "Includes h5 files containing offshore wind resource data for Hawaii. Data is available for the years 2000-2019."
  },
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "Mid Atlantic Offshore Wind Resource Data",
    "format": "HTML",
    "accessURL": "https://data.openei.org/s3_viewer?bucket=nrel-pds-wtk&prefix=Mid_Atlantic%2F",
    "mediaType": "text/html",
    "description": "Includes h5 files containing offshore wind resource data for the Mid Atlantic. Data is available for the years 2000-2020."
  },
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "NOW-WAKES Mid Atlantic",
    "format": "HTML",
    "accessURL": "https://data.openei.org/s3_viewer?bucket=nrel-pds-wtk&prefix=NOW-WAKES_Mid_Atlantic%2F",
    "mediaType": "text/html",
    "description": "Includes h5 files containing offshore wind resource data with modeled wakes for the Mid Atlantic, as described in Rosencrans et al., 2024 Wind Energy Science. Data is available from 1 September 2019 to 1 September 2020"
  },
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "North Pacific Offshore Wind Resource Data",
    "format": "HTML",
    "accessURL": "https://data.openei.org/s3_viewer?bucket=nrel-pds-wtk&prefix=NW_Pacific%2F",
    "mediaType": "text/html",
    "description": "Includes h5 files containing offshore wind resource data for the North Pacific. Data is available for the years 2000-2019."
  },
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "California Offshore Wind Resource Data - Deprecated",
    "format": "HTML",
    "accessURL": "https://data.openei.org/s3_viewer?bucket=nrel-pds-wtk&prefix=Offshore_CA%2F",
    "mediaType": "text/html",
    "description": "Includes h5 files containing offshore wind resource data for California. Data is available for the years 2000-2019. DISCLAIMER: This version of the data set for offshore California shows a large bias compared to offshore lidar observations, as described in Bodini et al., 2022 (https://www.boem.gov/sites/default/files/documents/regions/pacific-ocs-region/environmental-analysis/BOEM-2022-072.pdf). The updated California data can be found in the link above labeled "California Offshore Wind Resource Data""
  },
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "Guam Offshore Wind Resource Data",
    "format": "HTML",
    "accessURL": "https://data.openei.org/s3_viewer?bucket=nrel-pds-wtk&prefix=guam%2F",
    "mediaType": "text/html",
    "description": "Includes h5 files containing offshore wind resource data for Guam. Data is available for the years 2000-2023."
  },
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "Gulf of Mexico Wind Resource Data",
    "format": "HTML",
    "accessURL": "https://data.openei.org/s3_viewer?bucket=nrel-pds-wtk&prefix=gulf_of_mexico%2F",
    "mediaType": "text/html",
    "description": "Includes h5 files containing offshore wind resource data for the Gulf of Mexico. Data is available for the years 2000-2020."
  },
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "North Atlantic Offshore Wind Resource Data",
    "format": "HTML",
    "accessURL": "https://data.openei.org/s3_viewer?bucket=nrel-pds-wtk&prefix=maine%2F",
    "mediaType": "text/html",
    "description": "Includes h5 files containing offshore wind resource data for the North Atlantic region. Data is available for the years 2000-2020."
  },
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "California Offshore Wind Resource Data",
    "format": "HTML",
    "accessURL": "https://data.openei.org/s3_viewer?bucket=nrel-pds-wtk&prefix=now23_california%2Fv1.0.0%2F",
    "mediaType": "text/html",
    "description": "Includes h5 files containing offshore wind resource data for California. Data is available for the years 2000-2022."
  },
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "South Atlantic Offshore Wind Resource Data",
    "format": "HTML",
    "accessURL": "https://data.openei.org/s3_viewer?bucket=nrel-pds-wtk&prefix=south_atlantic%2F",
    "mediaType": "text/html",
    "description": "Includes h5 files containing offshore wind resource data for the South Atlantic. Data is available for the years 2000-2020"
  },
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "Original WIND Toolkit Data",
    "format": "HTML",
    "accessURL": "https://data.openei.org/submissions/2",
    "mediaType": "text/html",
    "description": "The data found in the current submission is an updated and longer version of the data that can be seen in the linked submission."
  },
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "Data Access and HSDS Usage Examples",
    "format": "html",
    "accessURL": "https://nrel.github.io/rex/misc/examples.wind.html#data-access-examples",
    "mediaType": "text/html",
    "description": "Examples of using the HSDS Service to Access NOW-23 data. Contains resources that will help users view the data found in this submission."
  },
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "AWS Public Dataset Registry Page",
    "format": "HTML",
    "accessURL": "https://registry.opendata.aws/nrel-pds-wtk/",
    "mediaType": "text/html",
    "description": "This is the AWS public dataset registry page for the dataset. WRF outputs can be downloaded from the AWS database."
  },
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "WRG Files for NOW-23 Dataset v1 - Deprecated.zip",
    "format": "zip",
    "mediaType": "application/zip",
    "description": "(Deprecated contents.) Includes WRG files for all NOW-23 domains, calculated at 80, 120, 160, and 200 m. Scripts to convert the NOW-23 HDF5 files to the WRG format can be found at https://github.com/NREL/wrg_maker. The updated data can be found in the zip folder below labeled "WRG files for NOW-23 data set.zip.gz"",
    "downloadURL": "https://data.openei.org/files/4500/WRG_NOW-23.zip"
  },
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "WRG Files for NOW-23 Dataset v2.zip.gz",
    "format": "gz",
    "mediaType": "application/gzip",
    "description": "Includes WRG files for all NOW-23 domains, calculated at 80, 120, 160, and 200 m. Scripts to convert the NOW-23 HDF5 files to the WRG format can be found at https://github.com/NREL/wrg_maker. Supersedes the Deprecated info above.",
    "downloadURL": "https://data.openei.org/files/4500/WRG_NOW23_v2.tar.gz"
  },
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "List of variables included in the NOW-23 HDF5 files.txt",
    "format": "txt",
    "mediaType": "text/plain",
    "description": "List of variables in the HDF5 output files for the US Offshore Wind Resource HDF5 data from 2000-2020.",
    "downloadURL": "https://data.openei.org/files/4500/US_offshroe_wind_2000-2020_HDF5_files_variable_list.txt"
  },
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "Map of Wind Regions - Deprecated.jpg",
    "format": "jpg",
    "mediaType": "image/jpeg",
    "description": "Map of contiguous United States plus Hawaii, outlining the domain of each region's offshore wind zones.",
    "downloadURL": "https://data.openei.org/files/4500/Map_of_Wind_Regions.jpg"
  },
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "Map of Wind Regions.png",
    "format": "png",
    "mediaType": "image/png",
    "description": "Map of contiguous United States plus Hawaii, outlining the domain of each region's offshore wind zones. Supersedes the Deprecated Map above.",
    "downloadURL": "https://data.openei.org/files/4500/Domains.png"
  },
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "NOW-23 Sample Data Files.zip",
    "format": "zip",
    "mediaType": "application/zip",
    "description": "NOW-23 sample data files, in .csv format, created using the rex extraction tool. The files include the full time series of all NOW-23 variables at the locations of the offshore lidars used to validate NOW-23, as described in the Bodini et al., 2024 ESSD overview journal article.",
    "downloadURL": "https://data.openei.org/files/4500/NOW23_Sample_Data_Files.zip"
  },
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "WRF Namelist Files for NOW-23 Data v1.zip",
    "format": "zip",
    "mediaType": "application/zip",
    "description": "WRF namelist files that describe the model setup used to run all the regional simulations for NOW-23 data set. DISCLAIMER: The files in this zip folder are incomplete in areas and do not include full initialization of certain parameters. The "v2" zip folder includes complete initialization of all parameters with full operability of WRF setup.",
    "downloadURL": "https://data.openei.org/files/4500/WRF_NamelistFiles_NOW-23.zip"
  },
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "WRF Namelist Files for NOW-23 Data v2.zip",
    "format": "zip",
    "mediaType": "application/zip",
    "description": "WRF namelist files that describe the model setup used to run all the regional simulations for NOW-23 data set. DISCLAIMER: The files in this zip folder have a typo in the "sf_sfclay_physics" parameter. The "v3" zip folder were correctly executed and should be used. See v3 description for more information. ",
    "downloadURL": "https://data.openei.org/files/4500/WRF_NamelistFiles_NOW-23_v2.zip"
  },
  {
    "@type": "dcat:Distribution",
    "title": "WRF Namelist Files for NOW-23 Data v3.zip",
    "format": "zip",
    "mediaType": "application/zip",
    "description": "WRF namelist files that describe the model setup used to run all the regional simulations for NOW-23 data set. Version 3 corrects a documentation typo in the WRF namelists for the North Pacific, North Atlantic, Mid-Atlantic, Hawaii, and Great Lakes domains. In the v2 files, the parameter sf_sfclay_physics was erroneously listed as 2 (Janjić Eta). The original simulations were correctly executed using option 5 (MYNN surface layer) to match the MYNN boundary layer scheme.",
    "downloadURL": "https://data.openei.org/files/4500/WRF_NamelistFiles_NOW-23_v3.zip"
  }
]
DOI 10.25984/1821404
identifier https://data.openei.org/submissions/4500
issued 2020-01-01T07:00:00Z
keyword 
[
  "Atlantic",
  "California",
  "Great Lakes",
  "Hawaii",
  "Mid Atlantic",
  "North Atlantic",
  "Northwest",
  "Pacific",
  "Pacific Northwest",
  "South Atlantic",
  "United States",
  "code",
  "energy",
  "h5",
  "offshore",
  "power",
  "processed data",
  "resource",
  "tool",
  "toolkit",
  "wind"
]
landingPage https://data.openei.org/submissions/4500
license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
modified 2026-03-23T17:29:38Z
programCode 
[
  "019:010"
]
projectNumber FY21 AOP 1.4.91.404
projectTitle A Validated National Offshore Wind Resource Dataset with uncertainty Quantification (NYSERDA)
publisher 
{
  "name": "National Renewable Energy Laboratory",
  "@type": "org:Organization"
}
spatial 
"{"type":"Polygon","coordinates":[[[-180,-83],[180,-83],[180,83],[-180,83],[-180,-83]]]}"
title 2023 National Offshore Wind data set (NOW-23)

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