Topic: a couple of dumb WU questions for you veterans!

[beaver]

Hey yall,

longtime lurker here, finally registered to post up with a couple of questions that bug the heck outta me!

1.  Why does WU not offer PWS rapidfire compatibility with their iphone app?  This makes no sense to me.  As a matter of fact, with over 100,000 apps in the app store, it seems insane that there is no app made by anybody to assist in getting my live weather accessible on my iphone, without going thru the browser to WU, which is too clumsy on the tiny iphone screen for my tastes!

2.  Since I set my WU station up on rapid fire (early Dec 09), it has always been the only station to come up under my zip code.  This is because it always has been the only station for zip code 75844, where I live.  Recently, another station has come online, and when you go to WU and type in zip 75844, now that guy's station is the default for my town.  Why?  How does WU determine which station to display default info for when a user inputs their zip code?

Thanks for you help, folks!
beaver

[lddaly]

2.  Since I set my WU station up on rapid fire (early Dec 09), it has always been the only station to come up under my zip code.  This is because it always has been the only station for zip code 75844, where I live.  Recently, another station has come online, and when you go to WU and type in zip 75844, now that guy's station is the default for my town.  Why?  How does WU determine which station to display default info for when a user inputs their zip code?

Welcome to the forum! I asked a similar question of Wunderground support early last year. Here was the response I received:

If we have a National Weather Service reporting station within 50 meters of the center of a city or zip code, we use that data as the default conditions, but if there isn't a station within that distance, we use Personal Weather Stations as default instead.  These are determined by distance from the center of a city or zip code as well.  The list is in order by distance; closest to farthest.

[Scalphunter]

They go by alphabical order so if your neighbor is down the list from his guess who comes up first

[DaculaWeather]

I'm within 5 miles of a NWS reporting airport and WU uses my station instead.

[lddaly]

That was the response given by Weather Underground support. You can also change the default station displayed :

You can customize which station's data is used on your local forecast page by either selecting "Airport only", or you can set a particular Personal Weather Station as the default station by using the "Select a source for your current conditions" drop down option below the conditions on the local forecast page for your location.

[DaculaWeather]

Yes, you can but if Joe Blow the ordinary user goes to the site and types in a zip code (in my case 30019) my station shows up, not the airport.

[lddaly]

Yes, you can but if Joe Blow the ordinary user goes to the site and types in a zip code (in my case 30019) my station shows up, not the airport.

Correct. I am just quoting the response given by Weather Underground Support.

[DaculaWeather]

I also think they tend to pick stations that are more accurate AND reliable. They don't want to show bogus data either.

[racenet]

I also think they tend to pick stations that are more accurate AND reliable. They don't want to show bogus data either.

I'm sure that has nothing to do with it at all. Their quality control is slim to none as far as I can tell.

[d_l]

I'm sure that has nothing to do with it at all. Their quality control is slim to none as far as I can tell.

Based on what I see in my ZIP code, your statement deserves a big +1. I wish they would institute some quality control and dump the stations that are turning their maps into GIGO.

[DaculaWeather]

I know they've dropped me out a couple of times when my data went bad and/or I've locked up and didn't send them data. How great their QC is I don't know.

[Chris H.]

What's GIGO?

And it's turning out to be that their Wundercam sites are not the best in terms of quality control either. I didn't realize my weather cam publisher, Web Cam Publisher from Where'sJames last September wasn't connecting to their servers even though the software indicated it was. Sure enough, 24 hours of NOT realizing this, they took my cam offline without so much as a freakin' email or anything. You would think that would be nice- it oughta be-and then I got multiple virus attacks, which convinced me it was time to let Windows XP go. MCE 2005 edition is so poorly put together (I didn't get a chance to check the website of the camera..so I'm partially to blame, but I'll add that Where'sJames kept crashing for no reason after about three weeks of running smoothly). I was thinking of putting together a small, low powered computer together, or buy a net top (computer with netbook hardware, such as the Intel Atom processor) with XP, but then I realized that Apple had a computer about the same size albeit slightly bigger with a more powerful processor (and not much RAM..ha ha). So I have a brand new Mini, waiting for a hard drive upgrade, Time Machine backup and RAM upgrade before I run another web cam software for Mac.

I wonder..does iWeb let you publish your weather software's information? (Like the ability to port it over to iWeb after you've created your website...)

[WeatherGoose]

I "AM" the NWS reporting station for our zipcode but WU still uses an airport 40 miles away for our current conditions, even though I have asked them to use my METAR several times!    We are the default station for our zipcode in terms of weather data though, just not the conditions you see on those icons.  For all of us up here including Yosemite Valley, we have LOVELY QUESTION MARK icons instead!  

Also... to Chris H. ... If you want the most KICK ASS web cam software on the planet you have the right platform for it now!

EVOCAM! 

http://evocam.com

That is what I use, and it works GREAT and requires very little of the machine to do what it does so well! 

[d_l]

What's GIGO?

GIGO = Garbage In Garbage Out

I'm partially surrounded by weather stations with inadequate solar radiation shielding on WU.  These stations are within five miles of me and one is even a CWOP station. They range from at least 3 to more than 10 degrees above everyone else during the daytime (solar) hours.  I can understand someone not having a fan in their shielding, but at a minimum they should at least have a decent radiation shield.

[WeatherGoose]

What's GIGO?

GIGO = Garbage In Garbage Out

I'm partially surrounded by weather stations with inadequate solar radiation shielding on WU.  These stations are within five miles of me and one is even a CWOP station. They range from at least 3 to more than 10 degrees above everyone else during the daytime (solar) hours.  I can understand someone not having a fan in their shielding, but at a minimum they should at least have a decent radiation shield.

EMAIL Wunderground and COMPLAIN!  I had a station up here at the Lake eactly like you describe!  I complained to WU with the station ID and some screenshots of their graphs compared to my station and the other VP2 up here.  They reviewed the station history and promptly REMOVED IT!  

It has been over 9 months now, and this offending station has not reared its INCOMPETENT HEAD since!