Author Topic: Trying to find a watering index script  (Read 1713 times)

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Offline UpstateWeather.com

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Trying to find a watering index script
« on: November 20, 2017, 09:23:37 PM »
Hey there. Does anyone know where I can find a script that shows a water / irrigation index? Similar to the screenshot attached. I can’t seem to find a valid download link.

Thanks!
Eric



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« Last Edit: November 21, 2017, 08:11:19 AM by eric799 »

Offline Bunty

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Re: Watering index script
« Reply #1 on: November 20, 2017, 09:40:00 PM »
I'd like it too, to go with my soil moisture sensor.  I thought it might be in http://burnsvilleweatherlive.com but couldn't find it there.

Also the 2nd home page using modified AltDashboard 6.95 at http://stillwaterweather.com/2ndhome.php

Offline CurtisZM

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Re: Watering index script
« Reply #2 on: November 21, 2017, 07:10:27 AM »
Found a link to a website in the Sandysoft Forum ( http://sandaysoft.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14885).

 Looks like Tony, the original creator has moved to this website?  https://southfranklinweather.com/weather/wxsoil.php

Offline UpstateWeather.com

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Re: Watering index script
« Reply #3 on: November 21, 2017, 08:53:19 AM »
Found a link to a website in the Sandysoft Forum ( http://sandaysoft.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14885).

 Looks like Tony, the original creator has moved to this website?  https://southfranklinweather.com/weather/wxsoil.php

Thanks CurtisZM. I'll try to search through the Forum and website - but upon initial scan, it doesn't look like they have a download section for the script. I may e-mail them and see if they can provide :)

Offline SLOweather

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Re: Trying to find a watering index script
« Reply #4 on: November 21, 2017, 03:13:46 PM »
I believe that I am the one that first introduced the Irrigation Index and found the Watering Index 7 or 8 years ago.



Background...

I started by inventing my own Irrigation Index. It's based on the assumption that people irrigate on a 7 day cycle. Basically, it's the sum of the last 7 days' daily evapotranspirations (ETs) minus the sum pf the last 7 days' rain (both in the same units, I'm in the USA and used inches). If it's positive, that's about how much water  you should put in the next 7 days. It's especially useful for someone manually irrigating, or using an old controller. Ours is 25 years old.

Then I learned that the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) had published their Watering Index. It needs the highest annual 7 day average ET sum for the locale in question, and also uses the 7 day ET sum. Divide the 7 day sum by the high average and express it as a percent. That's the percentage you should set a properly adjusted modern controller to for the next week.

I then modified the DWR's index by subtracting out the 7 day rain from the 7 day ET before dividing, giving what I think is a more useful percentage.

The main issue with the DWR index is finding the high 7 day ET for a given area. If you can't find it, you could estimate it (around here I'd start at at least an inch a week, ours is 1.45") and refine the number as time goes on.

I did include these calcs in another script I wrote to calculate some other fire weather indexes, but is based on a VWS text file that is uploaded to the server. I just looked at the script and it is, unfortunately, way not publishable. :(

Still, this is a teachable/learnable moment. If I figured out how to, in my hacky way, get it done in PHP, anyone else can. All of the math is here. I don't even use a database. The PHP script uses the VWS uploaded text file and saved data in a separate text file from yesterday. Today's calcs are written over the saved data file for tomorrow's run. A cron job calls the script once a day just after midnight.
« Last Edit: November 21, 2017, 04:54:45 PM by SLOweather »

Offline UpstateWeather.com

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Re: Trying to find a watering index script
« Reply #5 on: November 21, 2017, 03:22:02 PM »
I believe that I am the one that first introduced the Irrigation Index and found the Watering Index 7 or 8 years ago.



Background...

I started by inventing my own Irrigation Index. It's based on the assumption that people irrigate on a 7 day cycle. Basically, it's the sum of the last 7 days' daily evapotranspirations (ETs) minus the sum pf the last 7 days' rain (both in the same units, I'm in the USA and used inches). If it's positive, that's about how much water  you should put in the next 7 days. It's especially useflu for someone manually irrigating, or using an old controller. Ours is 25 years old.

Then I learned that the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) had published their Watering Index. It needs the highest annual 7 day average ET sum for the locale in question, and also uses the 7 day ET sum. Divide the 7 day sum by the high average and express it as a percent. That's the percentage you should set a properly adjusted modern controller to for the next week.

I then modified the DWR's index by subtracting out the 7 day rain from the 7 day ET before dividing, giving what I think is a more useful percentage.

The main issue with the DWR index is finding the high 7 day ET for a given area. If you can't find it, you could estimate it (around here I'd start at at least an inch a week, ours is 1.45") and refine the number as time goes on.

I did include these calcs in another script I wrote to calculate some other fire weather indexes, but is based on a VWS text file that is uploaded to the server. I just looked at the script and it is, unfortunately, way not publishable. :(

Still, this is a teachable/learnable moment. If I figured out how to, in my hacky way, get it done in PHP, anyone else can. All of the math is here. I don't even use a database. The PHP script uses the VWS uploaded text file and saved data in a separate text file from yesterday. Today's calcs are written over the saved data file for tomorrow's run. A cron job calls the script once a day just after midnight.

Awesome, thank you! This is helpful! I thought about trying to create my own in php so maybe i'll go down that road myself. I'm still no expert in PHP but hey, I need an excuse to get better :)

Thanks!
Eric

Offline SLOweather

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Re: Trying to find a watering index script
« Reply #6 on: November 21, 2017, 04:51:43 PM »
You are welcome! Some other notes...

Because the DWR Watering Index is based on the highest average week's ET, it can occasionally go over 100%. This is to be expected, if you have an uncommonly hot, dry, windy week.

I couldn't find a local weekly average, just monthly. So I divided that by 30 and multiplied the result by 7.

Most sites that publish indexed like these only update them weekly. As I noted, on SLOweather.com. it's updated daily. The dev implementation on WeatherElement updates every time that station's page is viewed or refreshed. (That site uses MySQL rather than the simple text data files of the SLOweather script and avoided the hassle of a cron job and yet another bit of data to be stored somewhere.

Rather than constrain them to zero, I let both indexes display negative values. I think they serve as a nice indicator of how long you might have before watering again.

Quote
I'm still no expert in PHP but hey, I need an excuse to get better :)

That pleases me no end, Eric! I started off with Anole's "Weather Sticker" script (don't tell WU I called it that...), and took it apart and figured out how it worked so I could do other cool things. That animated PTZ cam banner in my sig is one of efforts.
« Last Edit: November 21, 2017, 04:55:27 PM by SLOweather »

Offline CurtisZM

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Re: Trying to find a watering index script
« Reply #7 on: November 22, 2017, 07:16:26 AM »
My sincere apologies SLOweather. I didn't know you were the original creator.

Offline SLOweather

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Re: Trying to find a watering index script
« Reply #8 on: November 22, 2017, 10:52:07 AM »
No worries. I may have brought the indexes to people's attention, but I've never released my hacky script, so Tony, wherever he is, gets credit for that. :)

My sincere apologies SLOweather. I didn't know you were the original creator.

 

anything