Current Wind Power: This statistic shows how much energy could be produced in 1 hour (assuming the wind speed remained constant).  I decided to give this as a range derived from the current wind speed and wind gust figures.  The highest hourly value for this that occurred over the day is also given and is based on the Today's Highest Wind figure.  The model for equating these wind power values is given by the function:
 Wind power= [1/2] * [Air density] * [Wind speed]³
To simplify the model, I assume that the air density is constant at 1.225kg/m³ (what NOAA defines as standard air density).  The units for wind speed are converted to meters/second.
The result is given in Watts/meter².  What this says is that for every square meter of rotor swept area on a wind turbine (see figure to the right), x number of Watts can be produced.
For more information on wind energy properties, go here.

Example:
Wind speed = 5 m/s
Wind turbine blade length (also the radius of the swept area) = 5 meters
Wind Power: (1/2)(1.225)(5)³ = 76.563 W/m²
Swept area: π*r² = (3.14159)(5)² = 78.540m²

Thus, 76.563 W/m² * 78.540m²= ~6,000Watt-hours, or 6kWh.  Because we are converting energy from one form to another (mechanical to electrical), some energy will be lost in the transformation.  Additionally, the narrow blades of course do not cover the entire swept area 100% of the time.  Therefore, we can only use a certain fraction of energy in the wind for electricity¹.  For this website, I will simply assume that this factor is 30%.  Taking this into account with the 6kWh figure from above gives us 1.8kWh.

Moving on...this figure represents the approximate amount of wind energy produced in 1 hour by a wind turbine with 5m blades at a constant hourly wind speed of 5 m/s.  In New York State, this would be equal to approximately $0.30/hr in savings².  Carrying this out over a year (holding wind speed and cost of electricity constant), this is then equal to $2,600 in annual savings and possibly profit.  Of course, assuming that an instantaneous measured wind speed is constant over a year (or even a day) is unrealistic. The next section discusses how a more realistic estimate can be found.

Wind Power Today: This statistic shows a rough estimate of the total amount of potential wind power that could be produced during the day.  It is derived from the daily-averaged wind speed and multiplied by 24 hours (since wattage is power over only 1 hour).  This figure, without any further calculation, is likely to be an underestimate, though, as high wind speeds (even if they occur only occasionally) carry a much greater weight than lower wind speeds.  This is due to the fact that we cube the wind speed when calculating wind power; thus, a wind speed of 5m/s results in 76.563W/m² while a wind speed only twice as fast at 10m/s results in 612.500W/m², almost a ten-fold increase!  Ideally, frequencies of the varying wind speeds over the day would be fitted to a frequency distribution, and the Wind Power Today figure would take this distribution into account, yielding a more accurate result.  Unfortunately, I do not yet have an easy way to calculate this frequency distribution in real-time, so to find a reasonable estimate, I have made a few additional calculations based on historical frequency distributions. To give a better idea of this distribution, I have offered an example³ in the graph below:

As you can see, this graph gives the power (P) as calculated by the distribution to be 37 W/m².  If one simply uses the average speed (U), 2.7m/s, and calculates as shown in the example from earlier, we would get 12.056 W/m², which is significantly underestimated (in fact, it is more than 3 times smaller).  Hence, in seeking decent estimates over time, one must take this wind speed distribution into account.  Using my formula (estimated from historical data) to correct for this, I find the potential wind power for this example to be 39.886, only a slight overestimate. Over a day, this would amount to 957.266 W/m².

Have your own data?
If you have your own wind speed data, you can create a distribution like the one shown above. The 'A' and 'k' parameters are of great use as they can help estimate how much annual wind energy you could get from a particular wind turbine. Click here for more information.

Notes:
¹This fraction is related to Betz' Law, which states that <59% of total wind energy can be converted. Click here for more info.
²According to 2005 average residential electricity rate of $0.157/kWh. NYSERDA.
³Produced by WAsP OWC Wizard (version 2.0.62), on Wednesday, October 03, 2007 at 12:09:17 AM

Swept area

Radius/Blade length