I’ve noticed recently that it seems to be more windy here than in the past. Over the weekend, we had a strong wind storm with 60+ mph wind gusts. Yet I don’t think that the storm is proof. Just as a bitterly cold week doesn’t invalidate the process of climate change, a single wind storm doesn’t make it more windy. But I suspected changes before the weekend.

I mentioned my observation to a friend and he suggested I could use an AI tool to analyze the situation. I’m not convinced that artificial intelligence will help me get a better result.

The research in “Global trends in wind speed and wave height” by I. R. Young, S. Zieger, and A. V. Babanin indicates that it is an interesting topic. That paper in could help me identify the most useful questions. It also indicates that analyzing climate is not easy.

For my own situation, I need to find a source of historical wind speeds. Weather Underground has some data starting about 1940, but it isn’t easy to access. windfinder.com sells hourly data going back to 1999. I didn’t check the pricing of their data.

Another issue is what should I measure? Weather Underground has the maximum speed each day which is a good start, but may not answer my question. Windfinder has hourly data which is a finer granularity and might be more useful.

There would be a few more decisions I would need to make before I get an answer. When do I want to break between a historical base statistic to compare to recent data or should I look for a trend in the wind speeds? The number of data points in both groups can affect the statistical validity of my results.

Before I start looking for tools to confirm my observation, I need to make a lot of decisions. I don’t think an artificial intelligence tool will help me decide these prerequisites.

Artificial Intelligence is a trendy hammer, but not every problem is a nail.