New Metservice Your Weather Feature

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Ultimate Geek
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#1206928 1-Jan-2015 17:38

Hmmm. How do I click into these guys weather for proper forecasts, that's what I would like.
Metservice is frequently out in my area.

I find Accuweather far better....I see #21 is in my area.....

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richms

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#1206929 1-Jan-2015 17:45

I bought a cheapie off one of the daily deal sites a while back which I thought was a fine offset station, but it was not. Looked the same as the cheap one from bunnings.

Do not recommend. Cant go 3 hours without losing the link between the base and the outdoor unit, reads high in temperature on the outdoor and since its not a fine offset one, the directly connecting a 433MHz reciever to a rasperry pi thing doesnt work as the over the air protocol is clearly different. Its sitting in the too hard for now pile, will see if I can open it up and tap the RF output and sample it to see if I can modify the raspberry pi code to read it. Or just run a wire from the data pin inside and forget the vaugeness that is RF.

Richard rich.ms

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#1206999 1-Jan-2015 21:43

pctek: Hmmm. How do I click into these guys weather for proper forecasts, that's what I would like.
Metservice is frequently out in my area.

I find Accuweather far better....I see #21 is in my area.....

These stations give weather reports not a forecast. Accuweather works well if you want a forecast and and actual conditions

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grant_k

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#1207030 1-Jan-2015 22:43

pctek: Hmmm. How do I click into these guys weather for proper forecasts, that's what I would like.
Metservice is frequently out in my area.

I find Accuweather far better....I see #21 is in my area.....

I would trust the MetService any day over Accuweather!

I used the Accuweather app on my phone for a while and found the temperature readings for Kerikeri were several degrees out from those reported by MetService -- sometimes too high and at other times too low. I uninstalled it in the end, as the temperature readings were a joke, and the forecasts not much better. Now that MetService have updated their app, it is better in every way than Accuweather.

The readings from my Davis very closely correspond to the MetService, if a small allowance is made for our closer proximity to water. This tends to moderate the temperature readings a bit compared to Kerikeri Airport. However, the Baro, Humidity and Wind Direction all track the MetService within a digit or two.

ilovemusic

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#1207091 2-Jan-2015 10:10

accuweather is ok but their best feature is the tasty array of weather girls in the videos.

they are certainly more accurate than the weather channel which is more comedy than useful service.

21 degrees and blowing snow ???

haha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_u2sn3TdAs

DS248

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#1208292 5-Jan-2015 08:38

Question for TLD, or anyone else with a similar set up.

I just set up an Aercus WS3083 with Cumulus software & linked to the WOW service (or rather one of my sons did!). WOW bit working fine (Hatfields Beach site).

When PC turned off at night, stop getting data to the software of course. When turned back on this morning I thought the software would download the overnight readings. However, so far (after one night!) I do not have any data showing between when the PC was turned off and turned back on this morning. Just shows straight lines between the last and first sets of readings.

Is that expected behaviour? Or do I need to alter the configuration somewhere?

I did notice a data error logged at the time I started the PC this morning. (" ... check your data connection" but by the time I looked at the software a few seconds after turning the PC on, the data connection seemed to be working fine).

One thing that may have affected behaviour. I left the software running and put the PC to sleep rather than turn it off overnight.

Is it better to close Cumulus down before putting PC to sleep; ie. and only restart after the PC is fully back up and running?

===
Is there a way to 'recover' the missing data from the console (which does still contain half hourly records taken though the night)

Oblivian

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#1208301 5-Jan-2015 09:02

DS248: Question for TLD, or anyone else with a similar set up.

I just set up an Aercus WS3083 with Cumulus software & linked to the WOW service (or rather one of my sons did!). WOW bit working fine (Hatfields Beach site).

When PC turned off at night, stop getting data to the software of course. When turned back on this morning I thought the software would download the overnight readings. However, so far (after one night!) I do not have any data showing between when the PC was turned off and turned back on this morning. Just shows straight lines between the last and first sets of readings.

Is that expected behaviour? Or do I need to alter the configuration somewhere?

I did notice a data error logged at the time I started the PC this morning. (" ... check your data connection" but by the time I looked at the software a few seconds after turning the PC on, the data connection seemed to be working fine).

One thing that may have affected behaviour. I left the software running and put the PC to sleep rather than turn it off overnight.

Is it better to close Cumulus down before putting PC to sleep; ie. and only restart after the PC is fully back up and running?

===
Is there a way to 'recover' the missing data from the console (which does still contain half hourly records taken though the night)

Yeah... don't do that :)

It will only go into catchup mode on launch, and realising there was no data for a period of time compared with what it timestamped on the device.

DS248

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#1208311 5-Jan-2015 09:17

Thanks

TLD

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#1208367 5-Jan-2015 10:44

There's a useful list of dos and don't on the Cumulus FAQ page

http://wiki.sandaysoft.com/index.php?title=FAQ

Biggest no no is don't run Cumulus without the WS connected. You also need to be sure about what units etc you use on the calibration page, as changing them later will give you a false history. i.e. Cumulus just saves numbers.

How does your pressure compare to your nearest official Met Service site? Or how does the pressure displayed by Cumulus compare? I had to use a -10 offset in Calibration to get that right. You can find the official Met Service sites using the check box on Your Weather.

The only other minor issue I've had recently was messing up my rain stats when I dropped the pole to make some adjustments. The rocking cups must have moved via gravity or inertia, and added a couple of millimeters to my stats. The FAQ tells you how to fix that.

Where is your station so we can take a look?

Trevor Dennis
Rapaura (near Blenheim)

DS248

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#1208420 5-Jan-2015 11:33

Thanks

Station is north end of Hatfields Beach; ie. just north of Orewa.

We are currently reading a degree above Red Beach but having been outside fairly certain our temp is good. Our site is sheltered; ie. surrounded by trees @ 10 - 30 m distance. Cannot do anything about that & do not really want to - want to know weather around house & garden. All day yesterday it was in agreement with the majority of stations on the 'upper north shore'. Red Beach temp seems affected by solar radian. In bright sunlight is often reads 3 - 4 degree above Met Office and surrounding sites.

Unfortunately nearest Met Office site is not much help - out on the tip of Whangaparaoa Peninsula so much affected by surrounding sea.

One thing that puzzles me. Instrument is at ~42m elevation. Cumulus reports (presumably sea level) pressure a bit below that displayed on the console (eg. currently 1022.2 on console, 1014.9 in Cumulus). And that is also what gets reported on WOW. Surely sea level should be higher than our direct reading? Yes a 10 'correction' would seem to be needed. But seems in our case anyway, it would not be necessary if the pressure in Cumulus was above not below what the instrument recorded?

Oblivian

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#1208436 5-Jan-2015 11:54

Just check your barometer settings, Relative vs absolute differs like that. You may not have Relative chosen for both readouts.

As soon as I got my station(s) I fire up the local airport and check the QNH and set it from there. Although a distance from the airport I'm at a similar altitude. Its more the change in it we are interested in rather than the accuracy of.

DS248

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#1208465 5-Jan-2015 12:29

Thanks. Yes was Abs on the console. But puzzled me at first as I could find nothing in Cumulus to select between Rel & Abs. Seems Cumulus only displays Rel pressure. Then I realised that the console value was indeed Abs, so have changed that to Rel also.

But "Relative" to what?

That is why I initially selected Abs on the console.

I see WOW figure is actually 4 - 5 higher than the console value, so I assume WOW is making the sea level correction (they have the necessary info).

Our figure is currently 4 lower than Met Office Whangaparaoa Peninsula - close enough for me at the present time, especially given the very different environment.

Will worry about any further 'correction' later.

==
Pity Met Office do not have a site in Orewa or Silverdale. Eastern tip of Whangaparaoa Peninsula is not representative of the bulk of Hibiscus Coast.

(Edit: Of course, may not be too bad for pressure but temperature, rain etc will often be different from Orewa etc. Yes, rain can very significantly within a km or less, so on a day by day / hour by hour basis probably nowhere is 'typical'. But I would expect a possible long-term net discrepancy between the Met Office site and most other parts of the Hibiscus Coast)

TLD

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#1208550 5-Jan-2015 13:57

DS248: Thanks

Station is north end of Hatfields Beach; ie. just north of Orewa.

I see you. Showing 29° at the moment with 57% humidity. It's 29° and 46% here, and that feels uncomfortable enough!

The relative vs Absolute pressure thing is not something I was aware of, but while my console is set to Abs, I rarely use it — just read the info from Cumulus.

We had a new station come online today in Renwick. If the map placement is accurate, it belongs to someone with a computer business, so I emailed him with a link to this thread. There must be dozens of stations in the Marlborough area because most of the big vineyards have them to warn about frosts. It amazed me that the sky becomes full of hovering helicopters on a cold morning — apparently costing something like $1000 each, but the grapes are worth so much, it must make sense.

Trevor Dennis
Rapaura (near Blenheim)

DS248

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#1208568 5-Jan-2015 14:14

Yes, pretty 'sticky' here at the moment. Seems to running smoothly. I'd like to comment how easy it was to set up the WOW & I am sure it was. But of course I cheated & got one of my sons to do the hard yards :)

Oblivian

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#1208604 5-Jan-2015 14:42

Just added myself to it from Kaiapoi. 15min upload, but thats all it really needs.. right :P

The local radio station here uses home stations for readouts in the morning after using the main median reads from town/airport, was surprising to hear mine used within a few days of sticking it online and sharing to Wunderground.com :)

So WoW makes it the 2nd or 3rd I contribute to now.

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