Hourly rain vs Rain rate

[Blizzard]

Hi, 

Since I updated to VWS 14.00 p33, I've noticed something weird with the houly rain and rain rate.

Before, the houly rain would indicate any precipitation fallen within the hour. As soon as 1 mm of rain was mesured, the hourly rain, just like the total rain, would indicate 1 mm. That was great because I had set my SmartForcast to indicate rain when hourly rain was > 0 mm.

Now, il looks like the houly rain is actually the same as the rain rate. That is to say it needs a second mm of rain to appear and it always shows the same value as the rain rate. It's frustrating because if a second mm of rain never comes, VWS never indicates the rain icon.

Does anyone know why and what to do?

Thanks

[GregJ]

Does anyone know why and what to do?

About the only thing we can do is wait for a future release that may revert back to hourly rain rather than rain rate.  I emailed Ed about this quite a few releases ago and he said he changed it to rain rate because he had so many requests for it.  I guess it is a matter of preference.  Like you, I prefer hourly rain rather than rate.  Actually it brings up the need for 2 seperate tags because we are talking about 2 different measurements.  It probably wouldn't hurt to drop Ed an email about this.  I suppose we could form an "Hourly Rain Rate Lobby"......

Greg

[Mark / Ohio]

I'll bet someone here could write a script to calculate that.  hint...hint...hint..

[Anthony]

I'm running 13.01p9 and my hourly rain and rain rate are not the same. This is the way I think it works. Hourly rain is just that. Amount of rain thats fallen in the last hour. Rain rate. If it were to continue to rain for 1 hour at the rate it is currently raining. It would rain that much in 1 hour.

My big gripe is. When it stops raining. It takes for ever for the rain rate to drop back to zero. To me if not rain is measured in a certain period of time. The rain rate should return to zero.

[Mark / Ohio]

I'm running 13.01p9 and my hourly rain and rain rate are not the same. ....

Yes, it was early in the V14 releases Ed made the change to it.  Like Greg, at the time I sent Ed an email thinking he had a bug but found out the change was by design.  By his response apparently there were more folks that did not understand it then did.  So he got tired of answering questions about it and changed it.

[weather9]

I too sent an email to Ed. That was the first time I had V14p33 at that time. The reason I nuked it was because of the rain rate/ rain/hr issue.  It seems redundant to have both..Rain/hr as I always understood was the rain that fell the last 60 min. Ed told me of all the complaints about it. Wish it could get changed back though.

[Anthony]

Why is it redundant. rain rate and rain last hour is not the same thing. Atleast in the version I have it isn't. Maybe we are all confused at the way rain rate works.

[GregJ]

Why is it redundant. rain rate and rain last hour is not the same thing

Anthony,
That is the purpose of this thread.  Currently both tags report the same value.  The hourly rain tag ^VXV122^ reports the same value as the hourly rain rate tag ^VXV124^.  There is no longer a tag for hourly rain.  There are two tags that report hourly rain rate.  This started with version 14.  I still have sites on version 13 and they report hourly rain. 

Hope that clears it up,
Greg

[weather9]

Today is a prime example as to why the "old" hourly rain needs to be reinstated. I have had 0.04" of rain so far. As for rain rate, it has yet to register anything..so on current conditions on WU it would show no rain in last hour, even though I have had 0.02" of the 0.04" in the last hour. Rain rate is only to show how "hard" it is raining, it doesn't show how much it has rained, which is far more important.

[NiceBill]

Please understand, I do not mean to be "Grasshopper"

This subject has been thrashed more than winter wheat.

To satisfy your crusade, it would be best for you to call Ed, and have him explain to you why it is, the way it is.

Wax on Wax off.

Bill.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

[Carson Weather]

After my first rain event (this weekend) with my VP2 I was *very* confused about the vws rain tags.

I'll agree with Anthony that it took *way* to long for rain rate to return to 0" after the rain that ended, but the entry at the ambient wiki below explains why:

To calculate rain rate, Virtual Weather Station determines the current total rainfall as reported by the console, and then determines the total rainfall one hour ago from the database. The database values can be viewed by selecting Settings | Database Settings. Recall the last record to review the last record written to the database.

Solution
1. If you recently changed your total rain, the rain rate will be affected.
2. If your weather station clock is out of sync with your computer clock, and you own a logging station (such as a Davis Instruments unit), it will not properly calculate the rainfall one hour ago. Make sure your computer and weather station clocks are synchronized.
3. If there is a bad date record written your database, the rain rate will always read a non-zero value. To review this, select Settings | Database Settings and review the last record on the database (select Recall Record No:). If the date is some time in the future, delete this record. Keep deleting all records until the date and time is less then the current date and time. If this date is in the distant past, correct the time on your weather station clock.

An explanation (like we have above) of these tags would be very helpful:

^vvr009^              Total Rain Rate
^vrh009^              Total Rain Rate Hi
^vxv121^              Daily Rain
^vxv122^              Hourly Rain
^vxv123^              24 Hour Rain
^vxv124^              Rain Rate

My questions:

-What is the difference between "Total Rain Rate" and "Rain Rate"

-Why didn't my 24hr tag reflect rain that occured yesty, less than 24 hrs ago.

- I'm not certain, but I think my "total rain rate hi" value decreased after several hours. This should be a daily value, beacause there is a corrosponsing "High Time" tag that goes with it. (Again, I'm not certain, and I did make a daily rainfall total to the console which may have some bearing)

-Joe

[victorengel]

This is really frustrating. With this change, small amounts of rainfall don't get graphed on weatherunderground. Until there is a better solution, I'll be updating weatherunderground using my own software from VWS data, but VWS should be doing it.

For those of you who like and have been using rain rate, at what point does it actually trigger a nonzero value? Is there an explanation of the calculation somewhere?

[racenet]

For those of you who like and have been using rain rate, at what point does it actually trigger a nonzero value? Is there an explanation of the calculation somewhere?

It takes at least 2 bucket tips for rain rate to register. Otherwise, it has nothing to compare to calculate.




Bob

[blackjack52]

To make it more confusing, the RainRate updates faster than the Hourly rate.  The other rain tags don't show proper data as tagged and this has been addressed in the past as not showing correctly.  I guess it seems more of a "on a list ofthings to do" than a problem that needs to be fixed, like Alarms conditions and timers not working as advertised because it's never been reported before.

[blackjack52]

For those of you who like and have been using rain rate, at what point does it actually trigger a nonzero value? Is there an explanation of the calculation somewhere?

It takes at least 2 bucket tips for rain rate to register. Otherwise, it has nothing to compare to calculate.




Bob

in a 15minute time period.

[victorengel]

Whatever VWS wants to use for internal data representation is one thing. But what it sends to weatherunderground should conform to their requirements. Their requirements are clear about this:

http://wiki.wunderground.com/index.php/PWS_-_Upload_Protocol

"rainin - [rain inches over the past hour)] -- the accumulated rainfall in the past 60 min"

What VWS 14 is sending is clearly incorrect.

[blackjack52]

I agree.  If it rains .02 in 1 hr, there should be a register of the fact.  But, because the Rain Rate tag is used to indicate rain has fallen during any time period, VWS will not update WU.  This might be an oversight; meaning the correct tag was not updated to start sending Hourly Rain to WU.

Maybe submit a problem report http://www.ambientweather.com/viwestprre.html and also post your submission in the VWS Beta Testing thread http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?board=92.0

Just to change something because the purpose isn't understood shouldn't be the way to do it, especially if it means reporting incorrect data.  Or maybe I'm confused now.

[victorengel]

I got this promising reply from Ed:

Customers were angry that we were reporting different values that were on the console.
 
And when I say angry, I mean they were calling and yelling at me.
 
Looks like I will need to make a switch so they can chose which option.
 
I am very sorry.
 
ED

Sorry to hear people were yelling at him.

[blackjack52]

The Daily Rain tag does indicate .01 registers.  If that was sent to WU it would report correct amounts.

I was also thinking, the logic behind VWS using RainRate to report rain is to avoid reporting dew/mist/melting frost.

[victorengel]

The Daily Rain tag does indicate .01 registers.  If that was sent to WU it would report correct amounts.

I was also thinking, the logic behind VWS using RainRate to report rain is to avoid reporting dew/mist/melting frost.

WU uses two fields: rainin and dailyrainin. The former is supposed to be rainfall over the past 60 minutes. The latter is rainfall to date for the local day. The dailyrainin tag will keep the daily total figures accurate on wu, but the rainin tag is used by the graph.

[sam2004gp]

I got this promising reply from Ed:

Customers were angry that we were reporting different values that were on the console.
 
And when I say angry, I mean they were calling and yelling at me.
 
Looks like I will need to make a switch so they can chose which option.
 
I am very sorry.
 
ED

Sorry to hear people were yelling at him.

If he makes this change in the next Betas of Version 14 then I will be glad to upgrade, until then I will stay with Version 13.  I use the Hourly Rain in Smart Forecast to activate my condition icon.  And I would also like my data to be more accurate in when reported to WU. 

In fact I came very close to upgrading this weekend because of the Weather Warning/Advisory Update issues, but I just happen to run across this thread again and I changed my mind.

I guess the only way he can make everybody happy is to perhaps program in a sub-menu option into the settings menus to allow the user to make their own choice.  If he leaves it at one or the other, he is bound to have disgruntled users as he does now.

[racenet]

Sam,

A software author will have disgruntled users no matter what they do. That's just the nature of the beast.



Bob

[sam2004gp]

Sam,

A software author will have disgruntled users no matter what they do. That's just the nature of the beast.



Bob

This is true.   

Ed is like everyone else, human, and he has a right to his own "priorities" and "software product design direction - ideas".

He does a wonderful job trying to improve his product.  We are lucky that he gives us the time he does.  Most people or companies would just ignore us. 

[crazydaveiowa]

Ahhh, ok.....
I am now running v13 on a win98 os. I guess that is why my rain rate and hourly rates are different. When I was running v14 on a desktop...they seemed to always be the same.
Right now just had a storm roll through. Rain rate is .20; hourly rain is .30
I take that as the heaviest rain rate in last 15 minutes or .80 an hour, but the rain let up and reports .30 in the last hour recorded.
I rather like this compared to them both reading out the same amount.

[Mark / Ohio]

As of V14.00p49 it has been changed back to the old method.  (     )

From the Ambient Wiki:

P49. Changed Hourly Rain to old method. Hourly rain is based on the rainfall in the last hour as determined by your database. If your database does not have data from one hour ago, it uses the next point in your database.
Rain Rate is based on the rate calculated by your console and can be any variety of calculations. Please contact the manufacturer for method of calculation.
Total Rainfall, Rate of Change is defined as the instantaneous rain rate based on the differential equation (in la place domain format)
L(f(s)) = s / (Ts + 1), where T = 60 minutes, and transformed into the Z Domain. For more information on La Place and Z transformations, visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace_transform and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-transform.

http://ambientweather.wikispaces.com/Beta+Version+Instructions