Maybe I'll have to try it, I've been hassling him about several things. Got him yesterday to say he would fix my heavy rain issue with KPHX METAR showing DSNT SHRA in the remarks (RMK) and VWS would show the KPHX METAR icon and icon.jpg (KPHX is my forecast METAR) Heavy Rain. Ed tried to tell me that was the only icon he had for that condition..
"This is the closest icon I have for this condition"
I looked in the icon folder and just the icons dealing with rain are: Light Rain, Rain, Freezing Rain, Heavy Rain, Mist, T-Storm, Scat. Rain and Scat. Storms, so that was BS. I told him Scat. Rain is a far better choice for DSNT SHRA which is distant showers than Heavy Rain. In METAR +RA would be heavy rain, RA is normal rain and -RA is light rain.
http://members.cox.net/dsscheibe/vws/metar.htmThe biggest problem is VWS is not interpreting the METARS the same way. Saturday night KPHX was showing a RMK of LTGCGIC and it's icon was showing Lightning. The problem the other 6 local METAR were showing the same RMK and their icons where showing anything from Clear to Cloudy based on what the main body of the METAR said.. So my question to ED was why does VWS treat KPHX differently than the other sites? My contention is that VWS should not interpret items in the RMK section at all and if it has to then Scat Rain is far better for that condition than Heavy Rain. Manned stations put all kinds of junk in RMK. I'm running p87. BTW, when it was actually raining at my house my smart forecast did over ride the METAR forecast but if the smart forecast isn't active and the METAR does have SHRA then the forecast still says Heavy Rain, or in this case LT, lightning. We had a hell of a thunderstorm for about an hour Saturday night. What I need is some way that if the METAR says LT and it's actually raining to get the smart forecast to show thunderstorm instead of varying rain rates.
His reply last night
I removed the code to change the icon based on this condtion and changed the description to Showers in the Vicinity. It will have no effect.
I can not make too many changes. For one personal change to the software, I tend to get 10 complaints for the change. I will include this in the next version.
Regards,
Ed
from the beta changes page:
"Adds THW and THWS Index for the Davis VantagePro and VantagePro2."
http://members.cox.net/dsscheibe/vws/tags.htmIn a previous email I told him about this not working correctly on my test page and he actually asked me some questions about my set up. Usually he writes one line replies that don't really mean anything.
"Fixed various rain rate issues occurring on Weather Underground."
Will have to see if this fixed the problem I complained about.
^almmtd1^ ^uni009^
Normal Rain, month to date
^almytd1^ ^uni009^
Normal Rain, year to date: are reporting actual rain fall at KPHX Sky Harbor Airport instead of Normals. Right now Normal Rain, year to date:is showing 2.61 in which is about half our normal for the year.. Since I told Ed it was a Wunderground issue he seemed willing to do something about it. He gets very defensive if you say it is a VWS problem..
