Topic: Acu-Link to Weather Underground question

[jems]

Hello all..
  I got my dad a 5-in-1 for Father's Day.  All working great!
I know the Wind Gust and Precip Rate don't make the trip, but I was curious about what is displayed on Weather Underground for Precip Rate.

On his PWS page, it lists:

Precip Rate:   -999.00 in/hr

I guess I would expect it to be zero.
But I've done a Google search for: "Precip Rate: -999.00 in/hr" and get many hits from Weather Underground stations, so I guess that's normal?

Or is there a setting in the Weather Underground page to modify what is displayed here?

[Beaudog]

No

[Bushman]

Not seeing it on mine.  Did you reset the value for rain rate  before firing up WU?  Maybe it was an artifact from the install.

[haroldashe]

That -999 thing seems to be a "place holder" inserted by WUG when it receives a null value, such as precipitation rate.  I checked some other AcuRite stations near me and they all have it, too.

[Bushman]

My null shows up as "0 mm/hr".  Not sure if actually does send a rate or not?

[tmoosetrax]

My Precip Rate also shows -999 in/hr .
Was originally thinking maybe corrupt data I know after i installed my unit and cleared the current days data. After the first day i downloaded the stats to my computer and the first line was a lot of numbers way off normal. But if the Precipitation rate is the Daily rate per hr, this should have no effect on any of the following days.
Searched Acurite and looks like they are aware of this and working with WU to find a answer but that was two weeks ago and no update to this post:
https://support.acurite.com/acurite/topics/missing_or_null_data_to_weather_underground

[Bushman]

Apparently there is some lag in MBW reporting rainfall rate (metric or imperial) or WU.

[DoctorKnow]

-999 in/hr .

Me too.

[haroldashe]

From what I've been able to determine, that's what WUG uses to "fill in the blanks" if one of the sensors sends no value, e.g., rainfall rate.

[DoctorKnow]

In order to get rainfall rate, you must go to your my backyard weather, add a tile, and pick it from the drop down box inside your new tile. Then select "Settings" and click "Share Online Yes" and save it. After a while, you will get the dash showing up on WU. I would just add all the choices in your MBYW.

[tmoosetrax]

Actually upgraded my Vis Data Reader last night to ver 3.5.7.3 (I'm sure not recommended by acurite) but I no longer show -999 readings. Not sure if this is why but i would believe so.
I also now have a real number for wind gusts before that number was always zero.

[DoctorKnow]

I guess I can't use VIS since I have a bridge. I would also like to do faster updates, but it is what it is I guess.

[txweather.org]

I had a similar issue.

Here is Boris answer regarding the -999:

http://forum.meteohub.de/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=9783

Regards,

[DoctorKnow]

Is there a simple way to get faster updates to weather underground without using 2 computers? I have a wireless Dell Inspiron  with windows 8.1. I use it wireless with a router that the bridge is hooked up to now. I can plug the bridge into my empty ethernet port on the PC, but what else should I do? I am not up to speed on what I should download.

Would this work with the one PC? http://kevin-key.blogspot.com/2013/11/weather-and-coding-geek-project-acu.html

I do have a spare laptop, I just don't have the space to permanently set it up to be an independent permanent wx pc.

[Bushman]

Plug the Aculink bridge into the router and run the program on the PC.  The pgm reads WU, not your bridge.  Or if you want/need to move the bridge away from the router Meteobridge will transmit to WU in rapid mode wirelessly.  Your PC program will still scape the WU site. (or you could have Meteobridge push the data back to you for retransmit).  Total cost is about a $100 bucks but for that you get an ultra low power device. the MB application and ability to transmit from the bridge to anything wirelessly.s

[DoctorKnow]

I don't need to move the bridge, in fact I'd rather leave it on the router. If the program doesn't read the bridge, how does WU get it's data? Aculink only will send them info every 15 mins.

EDIT. IT WORKS GREAT!