Topic: Incorrect Wind Gusts from WeatherLink.com

[shakasha]

We have a Davis Pro 2 Plus weather station using Vantage Connect to upload data to WeatherLink.com every five minutes. That appears to be working very well. However, the main purpose for suggesting this system to my client is for having a weather station for him on WeatherUnderground. I found out that WeatherLink.com will only send data to WeatherUnderground every 15 minutes which is not what we want.

Weather Display will download from WeatherLink.com and then upload to WeatherUnderground every five minutes, however, the wind gust readings in Weather Display do not match what we have in WeatherLink.com. I've tried different settings, but the wind readings just do not match. It appears that gusts are averages. So for now we're just letting WeatherLink.com update WeatherUnderground every 15 minutes with accurate gusts and wind speeds. Ideally if we can use Weather Display every 5 minutes we will.

Any ideas or tips on how we can get accurate wind speeds and gusts on WD from WeatherLink.com? We definitely need actual high gusts, not averages.

[johnd]

I can't see that you have any conceivable control over what's happening here. AFAIK there is no Connect account setting that could affect this and the way data is forwarded from wl.com to WU is hard-coded too. So unless there's some setting inside WU itself that I don't know about I don't think you can change things. The only solution would be for Davis to change the forwarding code but there are reasons that I can't see that happening.

Why isn't the wl.com presentation (which obviously does show recent gust speeds) adequate? Or is it that you want to be able to access historic gust speeds? Maybe one day these will appear on the wl.com presentation 

[shakasha]

WU seems to be more popular and has a nicer presentation. The archives are very important as well. It also allows for a link to our website.

I see the XML that WL.com provides has a daily high gust, but does not show recent gusts.

<wind_day_high_mph>18</wind_day_high_mph>
<wind_day_high_time>11:52am</wind_day_high_time>

Weather Display for this same day has a daily high gust of 12.7 mph.

We'll keep searching for a work-around solution.

Thanks!

[johnd]

Totally your call of course, but WU doesn't have a good reputation and often seems flakey. The wl.com presentation (not the XML) shows the highest gust today and also (on the summary screen) highest gust in the last 10 mins.

But what it doesn't currently do is provide online access to the historic data. But see the EM (Davis Enviromonitor) screens for an indication of where the Davis presentations are heading.

[shakasha]

There is a "dual" purpose.

One is marketing, being the "best" weather station on Clearwater Beach, linking to our website, connecting with our Live Streaming HD Beach Cam, just showing off as successfully as we can.

Second reason, is personal. I am a total weather geek and want to see every gust, rain drop, temperature peak and valley. Hurricane Irma brought 90 mph winds to the beach and in our exact position we did not have the weather station installed we've been talking about for over a year. In fact, as popular as Clearwater Beach is we are actually the first to put up a real station with intent to count and archive every piece of data possible.

http://www.weatherlink.com/user/clearwaterbeach/index.php?view=summary&headers=0

https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KFLCLEAR164

https://beachresortcondos.com/clearwater-beach-live-webcam.html

I hope to use WD to build a cool custom weather page for our site. But NEED to show the high gusts. UGH, why is nothing the perfect solution? WeatherLinkIP would be great (what I use in my own personal station without a problem ever), but we'd have to have the unit in a vacation rental unit and be at the mercy of our guests to NOT unplug it or in other way take down the internet connection which is a regular occurrence. So Vantage Connect with a 5 minute upload to WeatherLink.com seemed like a good solid answer, even with a 5 minute delay. But now waiting 15 minutes for a Weather Underground drives me absolutely batty. And I am not convinced that we might be missing a big gust now and then.

But that is me, most visitors wouldn't even know there is a delay unless we are in a storm. With Vantage Connect, even if the power goes out or the internet goes down, as long as there are cell tower connections available we'll be uploading data. During the summer thunderstorm season everyone will be able to look in the morning and see the data on whatever we experienced the night before!

[Mattk]

As per the subject line

Incorrect Wind Gusts from WeatherLink.com

is this really the issue here? Are the wind gusts inaccurate and what makes it appear so?

Just trying to separate the subject from what appears to be a WeatherUnderground issue?   

[shakasha]

Are the wind gusts inaccurate and what makes it appear so?

They are accurate on WeatherLink.com and Weather Underground:

Today so far (first) 18 mph gust at 11:52 am.

http://www.weatherlink.com/user/clearwaterbeach

https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KFLCLEAR164#history

On Weather Underground go to the graph as the data has not started showing highs and lows yet as it was just set up this morning. I expect by tomorrow we'll have some high and low data.

My Weather Display software pulling from WeatherLink.com is showing a daily high of 12.7 mph gust at 11:54 am which matches the high recorded time on the WU graph:



All day WL.com and WU were reporting gusts of 15 to 18 mph, and WD had a consistent 12.7 mph gust at every update.

But when I checked the data in the XMl that WL.com provides there was no "recent" gusts, just the daily. I don't know that WD is using that XML, but I do know the WD daily high does not match the XML data which does match the WL.com and WU websites.

-<current_observation version="1.0"...">
<credit>Davis Instruments Corp.</credit>
<credit_URL>http://www.davisnet.com</credit_URL>
-<image>
<url>http://www.weatherlink.com/images/Logo_Davis_reflxblu.jpg</url>
<title>Davis WeatherLink</title>
<link>http://www.weatherlink.com</link>
</image>
<suggested_pickup>15 minutes after the hour</suggested_pickup>
<suggested_pickup_period>60</suggested_pickup_period>
<dewpoint_c>18.9</dewpoint_c>
<dewpoint_f>66</dewpoint_f>
<dewpoint_string>66 F (18.9 C)</dewpoint_string>
<heat_index_c>24.4</heat_index_c>
<heat_index_f>76</heat_index_f>
<heat_index_string>76 F (24.4 C)</heat_index_string>
<latitude>27.987692773962</latitude>
<location>Clearwater Beach, Florida, </location>
<longitude>-82.827691054344</longitude>
<observation_time>Last Updated on Nov 4 2017, 6:25 pm EDT</observation_time>
<observation_time_rfc822>Sat, 4 Nov 2017 18:25:00 -0400</observation_time_rfc822>
<pressure_in>30.129</pressure_in>
<pressure_mb>1020.3</pressure_mb>
<pressure_string>1020.3 mb</pressure_string>
<relative_humidity>77</relative_humidity>
<station_id>clearwaterbeach</station_id>
<temp_c>23.4</temp_c>
<temp_f>74.1</temp_f>
<temperature_string>74.1 F (23.4 C)</temperature_string>
<wind_degrees>321</wind_degrees>
<wind_dir>Northwest</wind_dir>
<wind_kt>7</wind_kt>
<wind_mph>8</wind_mph>
<windchill_c>23.3</windchill_c>
<windchill_f>74</windchill_f>
<windchill_string>74 F (23.3 C)</windchill_string>
<davis_current_observation version="1.0">
<observation_age>65</observation_age>
<dewpoint_day_high_f>67</dewpoint_day_high_f>
<dewpoint_day_high_time>2:24pm</dewpoint_day_high_time>
<dewpoint_day_low_f>62</dewpoint_day_low_f>
<dewpoint_day_low_time>3:12am</dewpoint_day_low_time>
<dewpoint_month_high_f>67</dewpoint_month_high_f>
<dewpoint_month_low_f>62</dewpoint_month_low_f>
<dewpoint_year_high_f>67</dewpoint_year_high_f>
<dewpoint_year_low_f>62</dewpoint_year_low_f>
<heat_index_day_high_f>79</heat_index_day_high_f>
<heat_index_day_high_time>10:45am</heat_index_day_high_time>
<heat_index_month_high_f>79</heat_index_month_high_f>
<heat_index_year_high_f>79</heat_index_year_high_f>
<pressure_day_high_in>30.229</pressure_day_high_in>
<pressure_day_high_time>11:03am</pressure_day_high_time>
<pressure_day_low_in>30.123</pressure_day_low_in>
<pressure_day_low_time>5:59pm</pressure_day_low_time>
<pressure_month_high_in>32.767</pressure_month_high_in>
<pressure_month_low_in>30.143</pressure_month_low_in>
<pressure_tendency_string>Steady</pressure_tendency_string>
<pressure_year_high_in>32.767</pressure_year_high_in>
<pressure_year_low_in>30.143</pressure_year_low_in>
<rain_day_in>0.0000</rain_day_in>
<rain_month_in>0.0000</rain_month_in>
<rain_rate_day_high_in_per_hr>0.0000</rain_rate_day_high_in_per_hr>
<rain_rate_hour_high_in_per_hr>0.0000</rain_rate_hour_high_in_per_hr>
<rain_rate_in_per_hr>0.0000</rain_rate_in_per_hr>
<rain_rate_month_high_in_per_hr>0.0000</rain_rate_month_high_in_per_hr>
<rain_rate_year_high_in_per_hr>0.0000</rain_rate_year_high_in_per_hr>
<rain_storm_in>0.0000</rain_storm_in>
<rain_year_in>0.0000</rain_year_in>
<relative_humidity_day_high>91</relative_humidity_day_high>
<relative_humidity_day_high_time>6:56am</relative_humidity_day_high_time>
<relative_humidity_day_low>68</relative_humidity_day_low>
<relative_humidity_day_low_time>10:42am</relative_humidity_day_low_time>
<relative_humidity_in>50</relative_humidity_in>
<relative_humidity_in_day_high>56</relative_humidity_in_day_high>
<relative_humidity_in_day_high_time>8:48am</relative_humidity_in_day_high_time>
<relative_humidity_in_day_low>45</relative_humidity_in_day_low>
<relative_humidity_in_day_low_time>1:42pm</relative_humidity_in_day_low_time>
<relative_humidity_in_month_high>56</relative_humidity_in_month_high>
<relative_humidity_in_year_high>56</relative_humidity_in_year_high>
<relative_humidity_month_high>91</relative_humidity_month_high>
<relative_humidity_year_high>91</relative_humidity_year_high>
<station_name>Surfside Condos on Clearwater Beach, FL</station_name>
<sunrise>12:00am</sunrise>
<sunset>12:00am</sunset>
<temp_day_high_f>76.6</temp_day_high_f>
<temp_day_high_time>10:45am</temp_day_high_time>
<temp_day_low_f>65.5</temp_day_low_f>
<temp_day_low_time>7:23am</temp_day_low_time>
<temp_in_day_high_f>106.2</temp_in_day_high_f>
<temp_in_day_high_time>2:37pm</temp_in_day_high_time>
<temp_in_day_low_f>68.7</temp_in_day_low_f>
<temp_in_day_low_time>7:53am</temp_in_day_low_time>
<temp_in_f>88.1</temp_in_f>
<temp_in_month_high_f>106.2</temp_in_month_high_f>
<temp_in_month_low_f>68.7</temp_in_month_low_f>
<temp_in_year_high_f>106.2</temp_in_year_high_f>
<temp_in_year_low_f>68.7</temp_in_year_low_f>
<temp_month_high_f>76.6</temp_month_high_f>
<temp_month_low_f>65.5</temp_month_low_f>
<temp_year_high_f>76.6</temp_year_high_f>
<temp_year_low_f>65.5</temp_year_low_f>
<thsw_index_day_high_f>90</thsw_index_day_high_f>
<thsw_index_day_high_time>10:45am</thsw_index_day_high_time>
<thsw_index_month_high_f>90</thsw_index_month_high_f>
<thsw_index_year_high_f>90</thsw_index_year_high_f>
<wind_day_high_mph>18</wind_day_high_mph>
<wind_day_high_time>11:52am</wind_day_high_time>
<wind_month_high_mph>18</wind_month_high_mph>
<wind_ten_min_avg_mph>6</wind_ten_min_avg_mph>
<wind_year_high_mph>18</wind_year_high_mph>
<windchill_day_low_f>66</windchill_day_low_f>
<windchill_day_low_time>6:32am</windchill_day_low_time>
<windchill_month_low_f>66</windchill_month_low_f>
<windchill_year_low_f>66</windchill_year_low_f>
</davis_current_observation>
<disclaimer_url>http://www.weatherlink.com/terms_corporate.php</disclaimer_url>
<copyright_url>http://www.weatherlink.com/terms_corporate.php</copyright_url>
<privacy_policy_url>http://www.weatherlink.com/privacy_corporate.php</privacy_policy_url>
<time_to_generate>0.002844</time_to_generate>
</current_observation>

I bolded the only wind data that appears to be history that I need right now, and it does not ranslate to the WD data.

On a side note...

Where in the heck is that obnoxious "Indoor" data coming from?? There are no Indoor sensors that I am aware of. Daytime Indoor High Temp of 106.2??

[Mattk]

Where in the heck is that obnoxious "Indoor" data coming from?? There are no Indoor sensors that I am aware of. Daytime Indoor High Temp of 106.2??

VP2 console/envoy has internal sensors for Temp, Humidity and also pressure.

[Mattk]

One thing you might notice with WeatherLink.com is wind speed has to be greater before the time stamp is updated. Like if there was a high gust 14km/h at 01:10 and the same high gust 14km/h (as displayed) was also recorded at 23:20 then Today's high gust shows as 14km/h  01:10 which is being a bit deceptive.

This may also be due to higher precision and rounding being done in the background but if the display shows a 14km/h gust at 23:20 then that should be the most relevant peak gust for the day, not something recorded the same 22 hours before.   

[shakasha]

VP2 console/envoy has internal sensors for Temp, Humidity and also pressure.

We have a VP2 Plus, no console, connecting to Vantage Connect that is uploading to WeatherLink.com via Sprint cellular.

We have the Solar and UV hardware. Figured the extra couple hundred bucks to give that data on the beach for tourists who want to get a tan without burning too bad.

So I am surprised to see "Indoor" data which must come from the VP2 Plus even though nothing is plugged into it that I am aware of or saw when setting it up.

[Mattk]

That board in the Vantage connect basically has the same capabilities (apart from the modem etc) as far as internal temp/hum & pressure is concerned plus also being able to connect an optional external temp probe.   

[shakasha]

This may also be due to higher precision and rounding being done in the background but if the display shows a 14km/h gust at 23:20 then that should be the most relevant peak gust for the day, not something recorded the same 22 hours before.

Hmmm, interesting thought.

If the high gust displayed is the first one of the day or the most recent, I'm OK with that as long as I know what they are doing. I'd love to know both at any given time, just the way I am.

[shakasha]

That board in the Vantage connect basically has the same capabilities (apart from the modem etc) as far as internal temp/hum & pressure is concerned plus also being able to connect an optional external temp probe.   

The Vantage Connect we have is mounted all by itself (hopefully Cat 4 hurricane proof) not too far from the Pro2 Plus on the roof of Surfside Condos -- No extra sensors connected, no other wireless gadgets connected.

It may have sensors built in which I considered, but never saw when the unit was open. The unit is facing the sun, somewhat blocked from any North wind so it's solar panel is in blasting sunshine. That would explain a 106 degree temperature when the day was in a comfortable mid to high 70's all sunny day here.

 

[Mattk]

You won't see the sensors, they will be mounted as part of the board. There will be however an external connector into which you can plug an optional external temp sensor which then replaces the data coming form the board mounted internal sensor.

[shakasha]

That explains it and it makes sense. Definitely explains the crazy temperature range; in an enclosed plastic box in full sun to get the highs over 105 degrees.

Makes me a little concerned on how hot it may get during the summer when the days are long and the sun is intense with mid 90's for 10 to 12 hours a day on a hot roof. Electronics do not enjoy extreme hot temperatures.

We mounted it on a wall as opposed to a pole as I am doing what I can to avoid lightning damage.

Will be thinking on this over the next few months...

[dalecoy]

Summary: for gusts, WeatherLink.com looks accurate to you.  WD looks inaccurate (and is lower than WeatherLink.com).

So, what do some other weather software programs show?

[Mattk]

.... Makes me a little concerned on how hot it may get during the summer when the days are long and the sun is intense with mid 90's for 10 to 12 hours a day on a hot roof. Electronics do not enjoy extreme hot temperatures.

We mounted it on a wall as opposed to a pole as I am doing what I can to avoid lightning damage.

Mounted back to a wall then this would probably increase the radiant heat? On a pole would give it some air circulation or if doing the wall mount then maybe stand it off a bit to allow a bit of air flow and reduce the wall heating affect.