title: How to create a raw data plot of a directional variable in Matplotlib
body: <p>I have a dataset of wind directions and I am looking to create raw data plots as seen in the example below. I should mention that I know about rose diagrams and how to create them in Python. This is another way of looking at the data and is commonly brought up in texts about directional statistics.</p>
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZgyUF.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZgyUF.png" alt="Raw circular data plot of 310 wind directions (source: Circular Statistics in R" /></a></p>
  <p>The plot is similar to a polar histogram, in that raw data is collected into continuous bins. But there are stacked individual dots for each data point instead of a bar.</p>
  <p>I have found a solution on the mathematica stackexchange, but I have no experience with that language: <a href="https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/31347/circular-plot-and-circular-histogram">circular plot and circular histogram</a>. The book I took the above image from also gives the R code for it, but I only know Python.</p>
  <p>Below is the minimal code I have until now.</p>
  <pre><code>directions = np.random.randint(low=0, high=90, size=50)
  # Setup plot
  ax = plt.subplot(111, polar=True)
  ax.set_theta_zero_location(&quot;N&quot;)
  ax.grid(False)
  
  plt.show()
  </code></pre>
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/YN8Az.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/YN8Az.png" alt="Empty axes" /></a></p>
  <p>As you can see I have not made much progress. Again, I can find code for polar bar plots and histograms, but not for this type of plot in Python. Any hints in the right directions are welcome.</p>