Author Topic: Upgrades? Since Victoria is Listening, What Upgrades Would you Like to See?  (Read 6782 times)

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Offline SkellyCA

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I figured we could put them in one thread to make it easier for Acurite to find.

I'm happy with my Atlas now that the bugs seemed to be worked out. So the hardware is fine with me. So for me, they need to work on the software.

Fix the strange rounding thing.

I would like to be able to share my data in more places then just Wunderground. I'd like to share with PWS and CWOP just to name a couple.
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up to much room.

Offline Neil_O

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I'd like to see the display have the option to enter the elevation rather than rely on the Learning Mode to calculate elevation.  I also think it would be good for the reporting of the rainfall on the display to show Today's Rainfall.

Offline korey

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I'd like local data available, or the ability for a metrobridge to grab the data locally so that I could feed it to my Rain Machine and not have to use the "Cloud".

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Offline ke9lz

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I am on the fence waiting for a way to get the data from either the display or the access.  Without it, many of us that have web sites that we feed can't use the Atlas which is a shame.  Give us that ability I will buy one.

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Offline davefr

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- 200' "real world" wireless range w/usable signal strength indicator.
- Larger console, touch screen, color, borderless, WiFi (and maybe throw in an ethernet port just in case)
- No ferrous metal in the outdoor sensor (ex: stainless steel mounting hardware)
- Better laid out and configurable display. (look at WS-2000 as "best of class")


A marriage between the tried and true Davis VV/VP sensor and a WS-2000 console would be a marriage made in heaven IMHO.  Everyone has a piece of the puzzle but no one has put all the pieces together yet.
 

Offline Harish

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I want rain rate to be calculated in a way they did in AcuRite 06006M Display and requested for a software update from support team. But they simply denied my request  :-(

Showing rain rate of the last 1 hour rain is non sense.. I would rather want rain rate of live rain.. 

Offline nincehelser

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I want rain rate to be calculated in a way they did in AcuRite 06006M Display and requested for a software update from support team. But they simply denied my request  :-(

Showing rain rate of the last 1 hour rain is non sense.. I would rather want rain rate of live rain..

You'll need to explain what you mean by "in a way they did AcuRite 06006M".

I'm not aware of any Acurite display that calculates rain rate differently from any other.

Offline Harish

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I want rain rate to be calculated in a way they did in AcuRite 06006M Display and requested for a software update from support team. But they simply denied my request  :-(

Showing rain rate of the last 1 hour rain is non sense.. I would rather want rain rate of live rain..

You'll need to explain what you mean by "in a way they did AcuRite 06006M".

I'm not aware of any Acurite display that calculates rain rate differently from any other.

Not sure if you have used weather display software.. The older model use to display 3 inches/hr when it was raining moderately similar to weather display software.
The current atlas model just shows the accumulated rainfall similar to wunderground. For example: If the current spell is 3.05mm, then the rain rate would be shown as 3.05 mm/hr and if it increases to 5.10 mm, then rain rate would be shown as 5.10 mm/hr.

Offline Harish

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I want rain rate to be calculated in a way they did in AcuRite 06006M Display and requested for a software update from support team. But they simply denied my request  :-(

Showing rain rate of the last 1 hour rain is non sense.. I would rather want rain rate of live rain..

You'll need to explain what you mean by "in a way they did AcuRite 06006M".

I'm not aware of any Acurite display that calculates rain rate differently from any other.

Not sure if you have used weather display software.. The older model use to display 3 inches/hr when it was raining moderately similar to weather display software.
The current atlas model just shows the accumulated rainfall similar to wunderground. For example: If the current spell is 3.05mm, then the rain rate would be shown as 3.05 mm/hr and if it increases to 5.10 mm, then rain rate would be shown as 5.10 mm/hr.

Here the difference is discussed:
https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=35084.msg360650#msg360650

Offline thomas

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I would like the main rainfall screen to show daily rainfall, midnight to midnight.

Offline nincehelser

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Re: Upgrades? Since Victoria is Listening, What Upgrades Would you Like to See?
« Reply #10 on: November 11, 2018, 02:07:54 PM »
I want rain rate to be calculated in a way they did in AcuRite 06006M Display and requested for a software update from support team. But they simply denied my request  :-(

Showing rain rate of the last 1 hour rain is non sense.. I would rather want rain rate of live rain..

You'll need to explain what you mean by "in a way they did AcuRite 06006M".

I'm not aware of any Acurite display that calculates rain rate differently from any other.

Not sure if you have used weather display software.. The older model use to display 3 inches/hr when it was raining moderately similar to weather display software.
The current atlas model just shows the accumulated rainfall similar to wunderground. For example: If the current spell is 3.05mm, then the rain rate would be shown as 3.05 mm/hr and if it increases to 5.10 mm, then rain rate would be shown as 5.10 mm/hr.

Here the difference is discussed:
https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=35084.msg360650#msg360650

You can ignore that discussion.  It has nothing to do with the rain rate displayed on the screen, but what happens if you don't follow the wunderground upload protocol as specified.

It's the same with WD.  It also has nothing to do with the rain rate displayed on the screen.

How you display accumulated rainfall is another subject completely.  Different people like to do it differently.  For example, some people like the midnight reset of wunderground.  Others prefer a 7:00AM reset like CoCoRaHS and NWS.  It's hard to satisfy everyone.

As far as I'm aware, all Acurite displays show rain rate in exactly the same way, as defined in one of the early 5n1 specification sheets.

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« Last Edit: November 11, 2018, 02:26:30 PM by nincehelser »

Offline galfert

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Re: Upgrades? Since Victoria is Listening, What Upgrades Would you Like to See?
« Reply #11 on: November 11, 2018, 04:36:25 PM »
Hello Harish,
Thanks for pointing out my rain rate discussion. Glad you prefer the same rain rate method I do, which is an instant live rain rate. That is the same method supported by all Davis Weatherlink stations and Ambient Weather stations. It is also a supported method in many 3rd party software. If you combine the total of all those stations (Davis and Ambient) on WU, it is the most popular method on WU to use for rain rate.
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Offline nincehelser

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Re: Upgrades? Since Victoria is Listening, What Upgrades Would you Like to See?
« Reply #12 on: November 11, 2018, 04:57:17 PM »
Hello Harish,
Thanks for pointing out my rain rate discussion. Glad you prefer the same rain rate method I do, which is an instant live rain rate. That is the same method supported by all Davis Weatherlink stations and Ambient Weather stations. It is also a supported method in many 3rd party software. If you combine the total of all those stations (Davis and Ambient) on WU, it is the most popular method on WU to use for rain rate.

"Instant live" rain rate?  The "most popular method" on WU for rainrate?

Please show supporting documentation and the formula.


Offline Harish

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Re: Upgrades? Since Victoria is Listening, What Upgrades Would you Like to See?
« Reply #13 on: November 12, 2018, 10:42:35 AM »
Hello Harish,
Thanks for pointing out my rain rate discussion. Glad you prefer the same rain rate method I do, which is an instant live rain rate. That is the same method supported by all Davis Weatherlink stations and Ambient Weather stations. It is also a supported method in many 3rd party software. If you combine the total of all those stations (Davis and Ambient) on WU, it is the most popular method on WU to use for rain rate.

Hi Galfert, Yes I have seen Davis also uses the same method in their console. Even Acurite accepted that they changed the rain rate calculation in atlas display. When I request for the firmware upgrade with older method of calculation, they denied my request. The one shown in atlas is dubious rain rate.

Offline Harish

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Re: Upgrades? Since Victoria is Listening, What Upgrades Would you Like to See?
« Reply #14 on: November 12, 2018, 10:46:10 AM »
Hello Harish,
Thanks for pointing out my rain rate discussion. Glad you prefer the same rain rate method I do, which is an instant live rain rate. That is the same method supported by all Davis Weatherlink stations and Ambient Weather stations. It is also a supported method in many 3rd party software. If you combine the total of all those stations (Davis and Ambient) on WU, it is the most popular method on WU to use for rain rate.

"Instant live" rain rate?  The "most popular method" on WU for rainrate?

Please show supporting documentation and the formula.

Hi nincehelser,
 Even acurite team accepted that they changed rain rate calculation formula and when I ask for the documentation for this change, they do not have one.

You accept it or not, I have acurite model similar to the one in below link and atlas

https://www.amazon.com/AcuRite-01036M-Wireless-Programmable-Monitoring/dp/B00FWSP3UC/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1542037167&sr=8-5&keywords=acurite+weather+station

I could clearly see the difference in rain rate when it rains. You can see the reply I got from acurite team:

Hello Harish,
The rain rate is showing on your Atlas display as it was designed. The rain rate is the rolling accumulation of the previous hour. So if in the last hour it shows .5 inches, your rain rate is going to be .5 inches. If in the next hour you get .7 more inches of rain, the rain rate shows .7.  We did switch from previous measurement methods based on customer feedback.  We did find our customers preferred their rain rate to be calculated in a similar way across platforms. I can confirm Weather Underground displays rain rate in the same fashion.
Rachell
AcuRite Customer Support
« Last Edit: November 12, 2018, 11:31:54 AM by Harish »

Offline Harish

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Re: Upgrades? Since Victoria is Listening, What Upgrades Would you Like to See?
« Reply #15 on: November 12, 2018, 11:34:39 PM »
Hello Harish,
Thanks for pointing out my rain rate discussion. Glad you prefer the same rain rate method I do, which is an instant live rain rate. That is the same method supported by all Davis Weatherlink stations and Ambient Weather stations. It is also a supported method in many 3rd party software. If you combine the total of all those stations (Davis and Ambient) on WU, it is the most popular method on WU to use for rain rate.

"Instant live" rain rate?  The "most popular method" on WU for rainrate?

Please show supporting documentation and the formula.

Hi nincehelser,
 Even acurite team accepted that they changed rain rate calculation formula and when I asked for the documentation of this change, they do not have one.

You accept it or not, I have acurite model similar to the one in below link and atlas

https://www.amazon.com/AcuRite-01036M-Wireless-Programmable-Monitoring/dp/B00FWSP3UC/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1542037167&sr=8-5&keywords=acurite+weather+station

I could clearly see the difference in rain rate when it rains. You can see the reply I got from acurite team:

Hello Harish,
The rain rate is showing on your Atlas display as it was designed. The rain rate is the rolling accumulation of the previous hour. So if in the last hour it shows .5 inches, your rain rate is going to be .5 inches. If in the next hour you get .7 more inches of rain, the rain rate shows .7.  We did switch from previous measurement methods based on customer feedback.  We did find our customers preferred their rain rate to be calculated in a similar way across platforms. I can confirm Weather Underground displays rain rate in the same fashion.
Rachell
AcuRite Customer Support

Offline nincehelser

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Re: Upgrades? Since Victoria is Listening, What Upgrades Would you Like to See?
« Reply #16 on: November 13, 2018, 03:02:50 AM »

The rain rate is showing on your Atlas display as it was designed. The rain rate is the rolling accumulation of the previous hour. So if in the last hour it shows .5 inches, your rain rate is going to be .5 inches. If in the next hour you get .7 more inches of rain, the rain rate shows .7.  We did switch from previous measurement methods based on customer feedback.  We did find our customers preferred their rain rate to be calculated in a similar way across platforms. I can confirm Weather Underground displays rain rate in the same fashion.
Rachell
AcuRite Customer Support

There's some obvious confusion there as wunderground DOES NOT dislay rain rate in that fashion. Wunderground is given rain data from the past hour, (which is a rain rate) but isn't used alone to show the screen rain rate.

What's really needed are things like the decay functions they are using.  For example if the rain rate does not change for 15 minutes with another bucket tip, the rain rate drops to zero. 

Offline galfert

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Re: Upgrades? Since Victoria is Listening, What Upgrades Would you Like to See?
« Reply #17 on: November 13, 2018, 01:51:26 PM »
Hello Harish,
Thanks for pointing out my rain rate discussion. Glad you prefer the same rain rate method I do, which is an instant live rain rate. That is the same method supported by all Davis Weatherlink stations and Ambient Weather stations. It is also a supported method in many 3rd party software. If you combine the total of all those stations (Davis and Ambient) on WU, it is the most popular method on WU to use for rain rate.

Hi Galfert, Yes I have seen Davis also uses the same method in their console. Even Acurite accepted that they changed the rain rate calculation in atlas display. When I request for the firmware upgrade with older method of calculation, they denied my request. The one shown in atlas is dubious rain rate.

Harish,
I wouldn't say the Atlas rain rate is dubious, rather it reflects something different than instantaneous rain rate. What it shows is the total accumulation for the past hour. It is real accumulated rainfall amount rather than a projected rainfall rate. It is like driving a car at a "rate" of 100 mph, then at the 15 minute mark your effective rate for the past hour is 25 miles per hour (you weren't yet moving 1 hour prior and at this point in time and you have only traveled 25 miles).  If you decide to stop after 15 minutes of driving at 100 mph then your effective speed for the past hour is 25 mph because with this method you have to take the full hour prior into account. If you drive faster or slower it will change the actual total at the end of the trip but you never know your instant rate using this method. Rather all you know is what actually happened.

So one method is an instantaneous rain rate (like driving at 100 mph), and the other is an effective rain rate (how far you actually drove in the past hour). Ambient prefers to call this effective rate as just Hourly Rain, but it isn't a metric reported by their equipment.

If you want to reach out again to Acurite here is some info on "instanteneous" rain rate:
http://glossary.ametsoc.org/wiki/Rainfall_rate

Nice simple formula defined by Ambient:
https://ambientweather.net/help/rain-increment-definitions/

Look at Davis documentation page 12 (formula defined with words):
https://www.davisinstruments.com/product_documents/weather/app_notes/AN_28-derived-weather-variables.pdf

My assessment that this is the most popular method used on WU is derived from my analysis of all weather stations reporting on Weather Underground. There are a total of 91,573 stations on WU in the USA (all brands and all models, data from Oct 2018). Ambient and Davis make up 46,802 of these which is about 51% of all stations on WU in the USA. You also should take into account that obviously Ambient and Davis are not the only ones utilizing this rain rate method so the majority is even greater than 51%. Also rather interesting in this analysis is that between August 2018 and October 2018 Ambient surpassed Acurite in total number of stations reporting to WU.
See here for my analysis data:
https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=34900.msg361260#msg361260

« Last Edit: November 13, 2018, 02:20:36 PM by galfert »
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Offline nincehelser

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Re: Upgrades? Since Victoria is Listening, What Upgrades Would you Like to See?
« Reply #18 on: November 13, 2018, 02:52:34 PM »

I wouldn't say the Atlas rain rate is dubious, rather it reflects something different than instantaneous rain rate. What it shows is the total accumulation for the past hour. It is real accumulated rainfall amount rather than a projected rainfall rate.

If that is true, then it would be a bug in the Atlas display, as Acurite displays have never displayed rain rate based on an hour accumulation.  It's always been something short of 15 minutes before it starts to update, as per the documentation I posted earlier.

And as I've stated before, Acurite and other brands do not send "rain rate" to wunderground.

Your conclusion is false.
« Last Edit: November 13, 2018, 02:54:15 PM by nincehelser »

Offline galfert

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Re: Upgrades? Since Victoria is Listening, What Upgrades Would you Like to See?
« Reply #19 on: November 14, 2018, 11:42:33 AM »

I wouldn't say the Atlas rain rate is dubious, rather it reflects something different than instantaneous rain rate. What it shows is the total accumulation for the past hour. It is real accumulated rainfall amount rather than a projected rainfall rate.

If that is true, then it would be a bug in the Atlas display, as Acurite displays have never displayed rain rate based on an hour accumulation. 
That is exactly what Acurite is doing, a rate based on the past hour accumulation, with a decay down to zero on inactivity of rain after a certain number of minutes. That period of inactivity and then potential restart would indicate the beginning of the next rain event. So as long as it continues to rain (no break) for a full hour then the rain rate continues to increase, faster or slower and lining up exactly the same as total rainfall amount. Then after the full hour of non-stop rain if it still continues to rain then only the total of the past hour is considered in the rain rate reported...which could mean that depending on if it has begun to slow down or actually increase in intensity the rain rate after and hour could continue to increase or decrease accordingly. So after an hour the curves match perfectly in nonstop rain. After that hour the curves usually separate because of how only the previous full hour is considered in the calculation.

Quote
It's always been something short of 15 minutes before it starts to update, as per the documentation I posted earlier.
Okay yes...but also what I said before.

Quote
And as I've stated before, Acurite and other brands do not send "rain rate" to wunderground.
From looking at raw data coming from Ambient and others rain rate is sent to wunderground. Here is a raw data from Ambient:
Code: [Select]
GET /weatherstation/up
dateweatherstation.php?ID=STATIONID&PASSWORD=PLAINTEXTPASSWORD&tempf=43.3&h
umidity=98&dewptf=42.8&windchillf=43.3&winddir=129&windspeedmph=0.00&
windgustmph=0.00&rainin=0.00&dailyrainin=0.04&weeklyrainin=0.04&month
lyrainin=0.91&yearlyrainin=0.91&solarradiation=0.00&UV=0&indoortempf=
76.5&indoorhumidity=49&baromin=29.05&lowbatt=0&dateutc=2016-1-4%2021:
2:35&softwaretype=WH2602%20V4.4.7&action=updateraw&realtime
=1&rtfreq=5 HTTP/1.0
Host: https://rpupdate.wunderground.com
rainin= is rain rate
dailyrain= is the total rain for the day which increases as it rains...and stays the same if it stops and only resets at midnight.

So yes, Ambient does report rain rate. It is just a different rain rate calculation based on instant rain rate rather than previous hour total. There are only two ways to do it that I've seen. And as I've said before neither is more correct than the other...they just tell a different story. I have no idea what Acurite sends or doesn't. If Acurite in fact doesn't send rain rate as you state then it could be then that Weather Underground is calculating it for you based on dailyrain input...and it may be then that Weather Underground is defaulting to using the accumulated past hour method. If that is the case then all that Acurite needs to do is calculate rain rate on the instant rain rate method and pass that along so that Weather Underground doesn't calculate it for them using the other method. I think it would be even better if Acurite offered this as an option as other 3rd party weather software does.

Quote
Your conclusion is false.
You could have stated that a bit nicer, like, "I think your conclusion is false." Or just don't even have that kind of talk which creates conflict. My conclusion is not false, it has merit as do also your viewpoints which I respect. When I'm wrong I have no problem admitting it. It is all still meaningful useful dialog because if I think this way, there is a good chance someone else also thinks this way, and then everyone learns when things are discussed. Let's be a united community that helps each other instead of at each other's throats.

Peace
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Offline nincehelser

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Re: Upgrades? Since Victoria is Listening, What Upgrades Would you Like to See?
« Reply #20 on: November 14, 2018, 12:32:50 PM »

I wouldn't say the Atlas rain rate is dubious, rather it reflects something different than instantaneous rain rate. What it shows is the total accumulation for the past hour. It is real accumulated rainfall amount rather than a projected rainfall rate.

If that is true, then it would be a bug in the Atlas display, as Acurite displays have never displayed rain rate based on an hour accumulation. 
That is exactly what Acurite is doing, a rate based on the past hour accumulation, with a decay down to zero on inactivity of rain after a certain number of minutes. That period of inactivity and then potential restart would indicate the beginning of the next rain event. So as long as it continues to rain (no break) for a full hour then the rain rate continues to increase, faster or slower and lining up exactly the same as total rainfall amount. Then after the full hour of non-stop rain if it still continues to rain then only the total of the past hour is considered in the rain rate reported...which could mean that depending on if it has begun to slow down or actually increase in intensity the rain rate after and hour could continue to increase or decrease accordingly. So after an hour the curves match perfectly in nonstop rain. After that hour the curves usually separate because of how only the previous full hour is considered in the calculation.

Quote
It's always been something short of 15 minutes before it starts to update, as per the documentation I posted earlier.
Okay yes...but also what I said before.

Quote
And as I've stated before, Acurite and other brands do not send "rain rate" to wunderground.
From looking at raw data coming from Ambient and others rain rate is sent to wunderground. Here is a raw data from Ambient:
Code: [Select]
GET /weatherstation/up
dateweatherstation.php?ID=STATIONID&PASSWORD=PLAINTEXTPASSWORD&tempf=43.3&h
umidity=98&dewptf=42.8&windchillf=43.3&winddir=129&windspeedmph=0.00&
windgustmph=0.00&rainin=0.00&dailyrainin=0.04&weeklyrainin=0.04&month
lyrainin=0.91&yearlyrainin=0.91&solarradiation=0.00&UV=0&indoortempf=
76.5&indoorhumidity=49&baromin=29.05&lowbatt=0&dateutc=2016-1-4%2021:
2:35&softwaretype=WH2602%20V4.4.7&action=updateraw&realtime
=1&rtfreq=5 HTTP/1.0
Host: https://rpupdate.wunderground.com
rainin= is rain rate
dailyrain= is the total rain for the day which increases as it rains...and stays the same if it stops and only resets at midnight.

So yes, Ambient does report rain rate. It is just a different rain rate calculation based on instant rain rate rather than previous hour total. There are only two ways to do it that I've seen. And as I've said before neither is more correct than the other...they just tell a different story. I have no idea what Acurite sends or doesn't. If Acurite in fact doesn't send rain rate as you state then it could be then that Weather Underground is calculating it for you based on dailyrain input...and it may be then that Weather Underground is defaulting to using the accumulated past hour method. If that is the case then all that Acurite needs to do is calculate rain rate on the instant rain rate method and pass that along so that Weather Underground doesn't calculate it for them using the other method. I think it would be even better if Acurite offered this as an option as other 3rd party weather software does.

Quote
Your conclusion is false.
You could have stated that a bit nicer, like, "I think your conclusion is false." Or just don't even have that kind of talk which creates conflict. My conclusion is not false, it has merit as do also your viewpoints which I respect. When I'm wrong I have no problem admitting it. It is all still meaningful useful dialog because if I think this way, there is a good chance someone else also thinks this way, and then everyone learns when things are discussed. Let's be a united community that helps each other instead of at each other's throats.

Peace

I'm sorry, but you simply do not understand how it works.  The Acurite displays do not use a one-hour accumulation.  Period.

As I told you before, the wunderground upload protocol specifies "rainin" as being the amount of rain that has fallen in the past 60 minutes.  I even indicted that it is a "rate", but not an instantaneous one.  Each display has its own time period for breaking it down further, typically something between 6 and 15 minutes depending on the brand.

While this has nothing to do with the display, wunderground takes that info and determines *their* rain rate based upon it.  Ambient, Davis, Acurite... they're all sending the same type of data, the only difference being if they are conforming to wunderground's protocol or not.

As you say, you don't know what Acurite is sending, but it's all in the protocol.  As far as rain reporting goes, Acurite is doing it EXACTLY as wunderground wants them to.  You can theorize all you want, but that doesn't make your theories correct.  The only thing different you can do is violate the protocol and change "rainin" to fit your fancy.

Acurite isn't calculating the shown rain rate.  Neither is anyone else reporting that.  They just report rain accumulated in the past 60 minutes, and wunderground takes it from there with their own processing to make it look "instantaneous" by breaking it down into a shorter time period.  I don't know how to explain it any simpler.

Granted, they can play around with "rainin" and report a different amount, so as to impact the graphs, but it's not standard.

The folks at Wunderground weren't idiots when they set up this up.  They knew they had to contend with the variances of different brands, and this protocol is what they came up with.  It's not perfect, but it is consistent.

Acurite is reporting to wunderground exactly as they are supposed to be reporting with respect to rainfall.  "rainin" is supposed to be accumulation of the past 60 minutes for EVERYBODY.

It's just that simple.

Here's the relevant quote, again, from the protocol page:

Quote
rainin - [rain inches over the past hour)] -- the accumulated rainfall in the past 60 min
dailyrainin - [rain inches so far today in local time]

If wunderground wants to start endorsing some other period than 60 minutes, then I will accept that.  It's their protocol, written for a reason by knowledgeable people.  Other's shouldn't be disregarding it because they think it makes their graphs pretty.



« Last Edit: November 14, 2018, 12:34:49 PM by nincehelser »

Offline Harish

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Re: Upgrades? Since Victoria is Listening, What Upgrades Would you Like to See?
« Reply #21 on: November 14, 2018, 12:50:35 PM »

I wouldn't say the Atlas rain rate is dubious, rather it reflects something different than instantaneous rain rate. What it shows is the total accumulation for the past hour. It is real accumulated rainfall amount rather than a projected rainfall rate.

If that is true, then it would be a bug in the Atlas display, as Acurite displays have never displayed rain rate based on an hour accumulation. 
That is exactly what Acurite is doing, a rate based on the past hour accumulation, with a decay down to zero on inactivity of rain after a certain number of minutes. That period of inactivity and then potential restart would indicate the beginning of the next rain event. So as long as it continues to rain (no break) for a full hour then the rain rate continues to increase, faster or slower and lining up exactly the same as total rainfall amount. Then after the full hour of non-stop rain if it still continues to rain then only the total of the past hour is considered in the rain rate reported...which could mean that depending on if it has begun to slow down or actually increase in intensity the rain rate after and hour could continue to increase or decrease accordingly. So after an hour the curves match perfectly in nonstop rain. After that hour the curves usually separate because of how only the previous full hour is considered in the calculation.

Quote
It's always been something short of 15 minutes before it starts to update, as per the documentation I posted earlier.
Okay yes...but also what I said before.

Quote
And as I've stated before, Acurite and other brands do not send "rain rate" to wunderground.
From looking at raw data coming from Ambient and others rain rate is sent to wunderground. Here is a raw data from Ambient:
Code: [Select]
GET /weatherstation/up
dateweatherstation.php?ID=STATIONID&PASSWORD=PLAINTEXTPASSWORD&tempf=43.3&h
umidity=98&dewptf=42.8&windchillf=43.3&winddir=129&windspeedmph=0.00&
windgustmph=0.00&rainin=0.00&dailyrainin=0.04&weeklyrainin=0.04&month
lyrainin=0.91&yearlyrainin=0.91&solarradiation=0.00&UV=0&indoortempf=
76.5&indoorhumidity=49&baromin=29.05&lowbatt=0&dateutc=2016-1-4%2021:
2:35&softwaretype=WH2602%20V4.4.7&action=updateraw&realtime
=1&rtfreq=5 HTTP/1.0
Host: https://rpupdate.wunderground.com
rainin= is rain rate
dailyrain= is the total rain for the day which increases as it rains...and stays the same if it stops and only resets at midnight.

So yes, Ambient does report rain rate. It is just a different rain rate calculation based on instant rain rate rather than previous hour total. There are only two ways to do it that I've seen. And as I've said before neither is more correct than the other...they just tell a different story. I have no idea what Acurite sends or doesn't. If Acurite in fact doesn't send rain rate as you state then it could be then that Weather Underground is calculating it for you based on dailyrain input...and it may be then that Weather Underground is defaulting to using the accumulated past hour method. If that is the case then all that Acurite needs to do is calculate rain rate on the instant rain rate method and pass that along so that Weather Underground doesn't calculate it for them using the other method. I think it would be even better if Acurite offered this as an option as other 3rd party weather software does.

Quote
Your conclusion is false.
You could have stated that a bit nicer, like, "I think your conclusion is false." Or just don't even have that kind of talk which creates conflict. My conclusion is not false, it has merit as do also your viewpoints which I respect. When I'm wrong I have no problem admitting it. It is all still meaningful useful dialog because if I think this way, there is a good chance someone else also thinks this way, and then everyone learns when things are discussed. Let's be a united community that helps each other instead of at each other's throats.

Peace

I'm sorry, but you simply do not understand how it works.  The Acurite displays do not use a one-hour accumulation.  Period.

As I told you before, the wunderground upload protocol specifies "rainin" as being the amount of rain that has fallen in the past 60 minutes.  I even indicted that it is a "rate", but not an instantaneous one.  Each display has its own time period for breaking it down further, typically something between 6 and 15 minutes depending on the brand.

While this has nothing to do with the display, wunderground takes that info and determines *their* rain rate based upon it.  Ambient, Davis, Acurite... they're all sending the same type of data, the only difference being if they are conforming to wunderground's protocol or not.

As you say, you don't know what Acurite is sending, but it's all in the protocol.  As far as rain reporting goes, Acurite is doing it EXACTLY as wunderground wants them to.  You can theorize all you want, but that doesn't make your theories correct.  The only thing different you can do is violate the protocol and change "rainin" to fit your fancy.

Acurite isn't calculating the shown rain rate.  Neither is anyone else reporting that.  They just report rain accumulated in the past 60 minutes, and wunderground takes it from there with their own processing to make it look "instantaneous" by breaking it down into a shorter time period.  I don't know how to explain it any simpler.

Granted, they can play around with "rainin" and report a different amount, so as to impact the graphs, but it's not standard.

The folks at Wunderground weren't idiots when they set up this up.  They knew they had to contend with the variances of different brands, and this protocol is what they came up with.  It's not perfect, but it is consistent.

Acurite is reporting to wunderground exactly as they are supposed to be reporting with respect to rainfall.  "rainin" is supposed to be accumulation of the past 60 minutes for EVERYBODY.

It's just that simple.

Here's the relevant quote, again, from the protocol page:

Quote
rainin - [rain inches over the past hour)] -- the accumulated rainfall in the past 60 min
dailyrainin - [rain inches so far today in local time]

If wunderground wants to start endorsing some other period than 60 minutes, then I will accept that.  It's their protocol, written for a reason by knowledgeable people.  Other's shouldn't be disregarding it because they think it makes their graphs pretty.

Hi Nincehelser,

Forget about wunderground. Have you ever seen rain rate calculated in davis console? If so, do you have more information of the formula they have used? I know even with davis device connected to wunderground, the rain rate would be same as the acurite reports to wunderground. But davis device shows instant rain rate as mentioned by Galfert and same formula was used by Acurite in the model 01036M 5 in 1 weather station. I was requesting the same to Acurite team in the mail communication.

Offline nincehelser

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Re: Upgrades? Since Victoria is Listening, What Upgrades Would you Like to See?
« Reply #22 on: November 14, 2018, 01:04:43 PM »
Forget about wunderground. Have you ever seen rain rate calculated in davis console? If so, do you have more information of the formula they have used? I know even with davis device connected to wunderground, the rain rate would be same as the acurite reports to wunderground. But davis device shows instant rain rate as mentioned by Galfert and same formula was used by Acurite in the model 01036M 5 in 1 weather station. I was requesting the same to Acurite team in the mail communication.

I used to run a Davis VP2, so I'm familiar with it, but I haven't had it running in a long time for a direct comparison.

What Davis and Acurite are reporting to wunderground will be very close if they are both respecting the protocol.

As for the Acurite 01036,  I'm not aware of it doing anything differently with "rain rate".  I do have one, but I haven't had it set up the past year.  I can set it up and see if it behaves as expected or not.

I checked out the Atlas display and it does seem to have a rain-rate bug.  Strangely, it differs between the beta and production unit.  It looks like something Acurite tried to address for production, but still didn't get quite right.  I've sent a note to Victoria about it.

Offline CW2274

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Re: Upgrades? Since Victoria is Listening, What Upgrades Would you Like to See?
« Reply #23 on: November 14, 2018, 03:02:33 PM »

I wouldn't say the Atlas rain rate is dubious, rather it reflects something different than instantaneous rain rate. What it shows is the total accumulation for the past hour. It is real accumulated rainfall amount rather than a projected rainfall rate.

If that is true, then it would be a bug in the Atlas display, as Acurite displays have never displayed rain rate based on an hour accumulation. 
That is exactly what Acurite is doing, a rate based on the past hour accumulation, with a decay down to zero on inactivity of rain after a certain number of minutes. That period of inactivity and then potential restart would indicate the beginning of the next rain event. So as long as it continues to rain (no break) for a full hour then the rain rate continues to increase, faster or slower and lining up exactly the same as total rainfall amount. Then after the full hour of non-stop rain if it still continues to rain then only the total of the past hour is considered in the rain rate reported...which could mean that depending on if it has begun to slow down or actually increase in intensity the rain rate after and hour could continue to increase or decrease accordingly. So after an hour the curves match perfectly in nonstop rain. After that hour the curves usually separate because of how only the previous full hour is considered in the calculation.

Quote
It's always been something short of 15 minutes before it starts to update, as per the documentation I posted earlier.
Okay yes...but also what I said before.

Quote
And as I've stated before, Acurite and other brands do not send "rain rate" to wunderground.
From looking at raw data coming from Ambient and others rain rate is sent to wunderground. Here is a raw data from Ambient:
Code: [Select]
GET /weatherstation/up
dateweatherstation.php?ID=STATIONID&PASSWORD=PLAINTEXTPASSWORD&tempf=43.3&h
umidity=98&dewptf=42.8&windchillf=43.3&winddir=129&windspeedmph=0.00&
windgustmph=0.00&rainin=0.00&dailyrainin=0.04&weeklyrainin=0.04&month
lyrainin=0.91&yearlyrainin=0.91&solarradiation=0.00&UV=0&indoortempf=
76.5&indoorhumidity=49&baromin=29.05&lowbatt=0&dateutc=2016-1-4%2021:
2:35&softwaretype=WH2602%20V4.4.7&action=updateraw&realtime
=1&rtfreq=5 HTTP/1.0
Host: https://rpupdate.wunderground.com
rainin= is rain rate
dailyrain= is the total rain for the day which increases as it rains...and stays the same if it stops and only resets at midnight.

So yes, Ambient does report rain rate. It is just a different rain rate calculation based on instant rain rate rather than previous hour total. There are only two ways to do it that I've seen. And as I've said before neither is more correct than the other...they just tell a different story. I have no idea what Acurite sends or doesn't. If Acurite in fact doesn't send rain rate as you state then it could be then that Weather Underground is calculating it for you based on dailyrain input...and it may be then that Weather Underground is defaulting to using the accumulated past hour method. If that is the case then all that Acurite needs to do is calculate rain rate on the instant rain rate method and pass that along so that Weather Underground doesn't calculate it for them using the other method. I think it would be even better if Acurite offered this as an option as other 3rd party weather software does.

Quote
Your conclusion is false.
You could have stated that a bit nicer, like, "I think your conclusion is false." Or just don't even have that kind of talk which creates conflict. My conclusion is not false, it has merit as do also your viewpoints which I respect. When I'm wrong I have no problem admitting it. It is all still meaningful useful dialog because if I think this way, there is a good chance someone else also thinks this way, and then everyone learns when things are discussed. Let's be a united community that helps each other instead of at each other's throats.

Peace

I'm sorry, but you simply do not understand how it works.  The Acurite displays do not use a one-hour accumulation.  Period.

As I told you before, the wunderground upload protocol specifies "rainin" as being the amount of rain that has fallen in the past 60 minutes.  I even indicted that it is a "rate", but not an instantaneous one.  Each display has its own time period for breaking it down further, typically something between 6 and 15 minutes depending on the brand.

While this has nothing to do with the display, wunderground takes that info and determines *their* rain rate based upon it.  Ambient, Davis, Acurite... they're all sending the same type of data, the only difference being if they are conforming to wunderground's protocol or not.

As you say, you don't know what Acurite is sending, but it's all in the protocol.  As far as rain reporting goes, Acurite is doing it EXACTLY as wunderground wants them to.  You can theorize all you want, but that doesn't make your theories correct.  The only thing different you can do is violate the protocol and change "rainin" to fit your fancy.

Acurite isn't calculating the shown rain rate.  Neither is anyone else reporting that.  They just report rain accumulated in the past 60 minutes, and wunderground takes it from there with their own processing to make it look "instantaneous" by breaking it down into a shorter time period.  I don't know how to explain it any simpler.

Granted, they can play around with "rainin" and report a different amount, so as to impact the graphs, but it's not standard.

The folks at Wunderground weren't idiots when they set up this up.  They knew they had to contend with the variances of different brands, and this protocol is what they came up with.  It's not perfect, but it is consistent.

Acurite is reporting to wunderground exactly as they are supposed to be reporting with respect to rainfall.  "rainin" is supposed to be accumulation of the past 60 minutes for EVERYBODY.

It's just that simple.

Here's the relevant quote, again, from the protocol page:

Quote
rainin - [rain inches over the past hour)] -- the accumulated rainfall in the past 60 min
dailyrainin - [rain inches so far today in local time]

If wunderground wants to start endorsing some other period than 60 minutes, then I will accept that.  It's their protocol, written for a reason by knowledgeable people.  Other's shouldn't be disregarding it because they think it makes their graphs pretty.
Have you ever seen rain rate calculated in davis console? If so, do you have more information of the formula they have used?

I have no idea what WU does with it, this is how it works in house.
BTW, thanks to "galfert" for the link.


RAINFALL RATE
Parameters Used:  Rain Total (actually, rain rate is a measured variable in the sense that it is
measured by the ISS and transmitted to the display console, whereas all other calculated
variables are determined by the console from data received from the ISS.)
Formula:
Under normal conditions, rain rate data is sent with a nominal interval of 10 to 12 seconds. 
Every time a rain tip or click occurs, a new rain
 rate value is computed (from the timer values)
and the rate timers are reset to zero.
Rain rate is calculated based on the time between successive tips of the rain collector.  The rain
rate value is the highest rate since the last transmitted rain rate data packet.  (Under most
conditions, however, a rain tip will not occur every 10 to 12 seconds.)
If there have been no rain tips since the last rain rate data transmission, then the rain rate based
on the time since that last tip is indicated. This results in slowly decaying rate values as a rain
storm ends, instead of showing a rain rate which abruptly drops to zero.  This results in a more
realistic representation of the actual rain event.
If this time exceeds roughly 15 minutes, than the rain rate value is reset to zero.  This period of
time was chosen because 15 minutes is defined by the U.S. National Weather Service as
intervening time upon which one rain "event" is considered separate from another rain "event". 
This is also the shortest period of time that the Umbrella will be seen on the display console
after the onset of rain.
REFERENCES
"Surface Weather Observations and Reports ".  Office of the Federal Coordinator for
Meteorological Services and Supporting Research, Washington, DC, 1998

Offline Harish

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Re: Upgrades? Since Victoria is Listening, What Upgrades Would you Like to See?
« Reply #24 on: November 18, 2018, 12:35:44 PM »
Forget about wunderground. Have you ever seen rain rate calculated in davis console? If so, do you have more information of the formula they have used? I know even with davis device connected to wunderground, the rain rate would be same as the acurite reports to wunderground. But davis device shows instant rain rate as mentioned by Galfert and same formula was used by Acurite in the model 01036M 5 in 1 weather station. I was requesting the same to Acurite team in the mail communication.

I used to run a Davis VP2, so I'm familiar with it, but I haven't had it running in a long time for a direct comparison.

What Davis and Acurite are reporting to wunderground will be very close if they are both respecting the protocol.

As for the Acurite 01036,  I'm not aware of it doing anything differently with "rain rate".  I do have one, but I haven't had it set up the past year.  I can set it up and see if it behaves as expected or not.

I checked out the Atlas display and it does seem to have a rain-rate bug.  Strangely, it differs between the beta and production unit.  It looks like something Acurite tried to address for production, but still didn't get quite right.  I've sent a note to Victoria about it.

Thanks Nincehelser for bringing the rain rate issue to Victoria. Please post here if you get reply from her.

 

anything