Question

I have weather data that was recorded every hour, and location data (X,Y) that was recorded every 4 hours. I want to know what the temperature was at location X,Y. The weather data isn’t exactly at the same time. So, I have written this loop for every location to scan through the weather data looking for the “closest” in Date/TIME and extracting the data from that time. The problem is the way Ive written it, for location #2, it scans through the weather data but will not allow the closest time information to be assigned that was assigned for location#1. Say location #1 & 2 are taken within 10 minutes at 6pm and 6:10pm, the closest weather time is 6pm. I can’t get it to allow the weather data at 6pm as an option. I kind of set it up like this because 200 locations into my location data set (say 3 months into it), I do not want it starting at time 0 from the weather data, when I know that the closest weather data was just calculated for the last location and that happens to be 3 months into that data set too. Below is some sample data and my code. I don’t know if this makes sense.

<h6>####Location data</h6>

<p>X   Y   DateTime <br />
1   2   4/2/2003    18:01:01
3   2   4/4/2003    17:01:33
2   3   4/6/2003    16:03:07
5   6   4/8/2003    15:03:08
3   7   4/10/2003   14:03:06
4   5   4/2/2003    13:02:00
4   5   4/4/2003    12:14:43
4   3   4/6/2003    11:00:56
3   5   4/8/2003    10:02:06</p>

<h2>2   4   4/10/2003   9:02:19</h2>

<p>Weather Data
DateTime        WndSp   WndDir  Hgt
4/2/2003 17:41:00   8.17    102.86  3462.43
4/2/2003 20:00:00   6.70    106.00  17661.00
4/2/2003 10:41:00   6.18    106.00  22000.00
4/2/2003 11:41:00   5.78    106.00  22000.00
4/2/2003 12:41:00   5.48    104.00  22000.00
4/4/2003 17:53:00   7.96    104.29  6541.00
4/4/2003 20:53:00   6.60    106.00  22000.00
4/4/2003 19:41:00   7.82    105.00  7555.00
4/4/2003 7:41:00    6.62    105.00  14767.50
4/4/2003 8:41:00    6.70    106.00  17661.00
4/4/2003 9:41:00    6.60    106.00  22000.00
4/5/2003 20:41:00   7.38    106.67  11156.67
4/6/2003 18:07:00   7.82    105.00  7555.00
4/6/2003 21:53:00   6.18    106.00  22000.00
4/6/2003 21:41:00   6.62    105.00  14767.50
4/6/2003 4:41:00    7.96    104.29  6541.00
4/6/2003 5:41:00    7.82    105.00  7555.00
4/6/2003 6:41:00    7.38    106.67  11156.67
4/8/2003 18:53:00   7.38    106.67  11156.67
4/8/2003 22:53:00   5.78    106.00  22000.00
4/8/2003 1:41:00    5.78    106.00  22000.00
4/8/2003 2:41:00    5.48    104.00  22000.00
4/8/2003 3:41:00    8.17    102.86  3462.43
4/10/2003 19:53:00  6.62    105.00  14767.50
4/10/2003 23:53:00  5.48    104.00  22000.00
4/10/2003 22:41:00  6.70    106.00  17661.00
4/10/2003 23:41:00  6.60    106.00  22000.00
4/10/2003 0:41:00   6.18    106.00  22000.00
4/11/2003 17:41:00  8.17    102.86  3462.43</p>

<h2>4/12/2003 18:41:00  7.96    104.29  6541.0</h2>

.

weathrow = 1
for (i in 1:nrow(SortLoc)) {
    t = 0
    while (t < 1) {
        timedif1 = difftime(SortLoc$DateTime[i], SortWeath$DateTime[weathrow], units="auto")
        timedif2 =  difftime(SortLoc$DateTime[i], SortWeath$DateTime[weathrow+1], units="auto") 
        if (timedif2 < 0) {
            if (abs(timedif1) < abs(timedif2)) {
                SortLoc$WndSp[i]=SortWeath$WndSp[weathrow]
                SortLoc$WndDir[i]=SortWeath$WndDir[weathrow]
                SortLoc$Hgt[i]=SortWeath$Hgt[weathrow]
            } else {
                SortLoc$WndSp[i]=SortWeath$WndSp[weathrow+1]
                SortLoc$WndDir[i]=SortWeath$WndDir[weathrow+1]
                SortLoc$Hgt[i]=SortWeath$Hgt[weathrow+1]
            }
            t = 1
        }
        if (abs(SortLoc$DateTime[i] - SortLoc$DateTime[i+1] < 50)) {
            weathrow=weathrow
        } else {
            weathrow = weathrow+1
            #if(weathrow = nrow(SortWeath)){t=1}
        }
    } #end while
}

Answer 1

You could use findInterval function to find nearest value:

# example data:
x <- rnorm(120000)
y <- rnorm(71000)
y <- sort(y) # second vector must be sorted
id <- findInterval(x, y, all.inside=TRUE) # finds position of last y smaller then x
id_min <- ifelse(abs(x-y[id])<abs(x-y[id+1]), id, id+1) # to find nearest

In your case some as.numeric might be needed.

# assumed that SortWeath is sorted, if not then SortWeath <- SortWeath[order(SortWeath$DateTime),]
x <- as.numeric(SortLoc$DateTime)
y <- as.numeric(SortWeath$DateTime)
id <- findInterval(x, y, all.inside=TRUE)
id_min <- ifelse(abs(x-y[id])<abs(x-y[id+1]), id, id+1)
SortLoc$WndSp  <- SortWeath$WndSp[id_min]
SortLoc$WndDir <- SortWeath$WndDir[id_min]
SortLoc$Hgt    <- SortWeath$Hgt[id_min]

---

Some addition: you should never, ABSOLUTELY NEWER add values to data.frame in for-loop. Check this comparison:

N=1000
x <- numeric(N)
X <- data.frame(x=x)
require(rbenchmark)
benchmark(
    vector = {for (i in 1:N) x[i]<-1},
    data.frame = {for (i in 1:N) X$x[i]<-1}
)
#         test replications elapsed relative
# 2 data.frame          100    4.32    22.74
# 1     vector          100    0.19     1.00

data.frame version is over 20 times slower, and if more rows it contain then difference is bigger.

So if you change you script and first initialize result vectors:

tmp_WndSp <- tmp_WndDir <- tmp_Hg <- rep(NA, nrow(SortLoc))

then update values in loop

tmp_WndSp[i] <- SortWeath$WndSp[weathrow+1]
# and so on...

and at the end (outside the loop) update proper columns:

SortLoc$WndSp <- tmp_WndSp
SortLoc$WndDir <- tmp_WndDir
SortLoc$Hgt <- tmp_Hgt

It should run much faster.