CYGNSS: Satellite Wind Speed and Sea State Data

Version 3.0 CYGNSS Level 2 data provides daily average wind speed and mean square slope measurements with 25-kilometer resolution from a constellation of eight satellites. NASA's updated processing uses refined Geophysical Model Functions derived from MERRA-2 and HWRF models to improve accuracy, especially near cyclonic storms. Each daily netCDF file has a latency of approximately six days from the last measurement.

Use Cases

• Analyzing global ocean wind patterns based on daily average wind speed measurements
• Studying sea state conditions near cyclonic storms based on the tapered wind speed retrieval for young seas
• Validating and improving wind speed models based on the updated Geophysical Model Functions
• Monitoring tropical cyclone development based on high wind speed data from satellite constellations

Strengths

• Data has a spatial resolution of 25x25 kilometers
• Version 3.0 supersedes Version 2.1 and includes improved calibration and validation
• Daily files contain data from up to eight unique spacecraft

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Data is produced by the Delay Doppler Mapping Instrument aboard the CYGNSS satellite constellation.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 03:19:34.816025; freshness should be verified

Geography

Global ocean coverage, determined by specular points of GPS reflections.