NOAA reps

[weather]

Hi every one and body..

Having archived valid bdase.csv files and of course actual year one.

Is there a way of REgenerating NOAA monthly and yearly reports within

VWS....??? That is the question 

Thanks all and one.

Regards.

-= weather =-

[mackbig]

I believe those reports use the .bin files as a source (not your dbase.csv, or the YYYYdbase.csv) I successfully restated a years worth of noaa files by editing the monthly bin files, as I noticed midway into 2008 (or was it 2007) that vws was doing degree days wrong.

Andrew

Hi every one and body..

Having archived valid bdase.csv files and of course actual year one.

Is there a way of REgenerating NOAA monthly and yearly reports within

VWS....??? That is the question 

Thanks all and one.

Regards.

-= weather =-

[weather]

Meaning you did the job manualy ???   

[mackbig]

Partially manually. All I did was change the "degree days" value for each month using the "recall" function, I left everything else as is.   Then when VWS created the NOAA reports it used the revised values.  5 minutes to change the several values, then software did the rest.

found my old post from when I did it  http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=2536.0

Andrew

Meaning you did the job manualy ???   

[LFWX]

Not sure what type of station you have, but if it's a Davis you can use WeatherLink to generate a report for any month.

[grub]

Hi Andrew,

Old thread, but I have the same problem you corrected for: after having the degree day base temperature calculation set to the wrong units for a long time, I understand that the montly degree day value can be changed through the recall command. But how did you know what new degree day value to put in for each month? (or, is there a way of letting vws recalculate the database using a new correct base temperature?)

cheers,

grub

Partially manually. All I did was change the "degree days" value for each month using the "recall" function, I left everything else as is.   Then when VWS created the NOAA reports it used the revised values.  5 minutes to change the several values, then software did the rest.

found my old post from when I did it  http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=2536.0

Andrew

Meaning you did the job manualy ???  

[mackbig]

grub,
I will have to take a look tonight.  I dont think it was that hard, but I will have to dig deeper to tweak my memory.

Andrew

[mackbig]

grub,
I had a third coffee and figured it out without have to look at VWS.

You can use this formula to restate the monthly heating degree days.  (doing it daily then totalling the number is the only way to come up with a truly accurate number due to rouding and the fact that you might have a month with both heating and cooling, but this was close enough for me since I was just doing jan to may and there were no cooling degree days mixed in with the heating days)

Take your Base Temp, for me its 18C, subtract your mean temp for the month. Then multiply by days in the month (use same logic if doing the daily method)
Negative is heating, positive is cooling, but for input use the absolute value.

Winter Example (jan mean -5.9)
18C - (-5.9) * 31 = 741
23.9 * 31 = 741
so heating degree days would be 741

Summer Example (June mean temp 22)
18 - 22 * 30 = -120
-4 * 30 = -120
So cooling degree days would be 120.

Andrew

[grub]

Andrew,

Thank you for the info on this! I'll try it for the winter and summer months. My problem is that I also have fall and spring data periods that need to be adjusted. I guess (as you say), if a month has both heating and cooling days it makes things more complicated to do manually, since each day need to be calculated separately.

Really wish there was an option in vws to recalculate these values (if one decides to change base temp), or a third party solution that would go through the vws data base.

grub

grub,
I had a third coffee and figured it out without have to look at VWS.

You can use this formula to restate the monthly heating degree days.  (doing it daily then totalling the number is the only way to come up with a truly accurate number due to rouding and the fact that you might have a month with both heating and cooling, but this was close enough for me since I was just doing jan to may and there were no cooling degree days mixed in with the heating days)

Take your Base Temp, for me its 18C, subtract your mean temp for the month. Then multiply by days in the month (use same logic if doing the daily method)
Negative is heating, positive is cooling, but for input use the absolute value.

Winter Example (jan mean -5.9)
18C - (-5.9) * 31 = 741
23.9 * 31 = 741
so heating degree days would be 741

Summer Example (June mean temp 22)
18 - 22 * 30 = -120
-4 * 30 = -120
So cooling degree days would be 120.

Andrew

[mackbig]

No problem grub.

I have never seen a metric vws user that has a properly configured degree days setup.  Most have heating days in the several thousands, and zero degree cooling days due to using 65 vs 18.

I dont think your wish for an automated fix will ever happen.  Not a really critical variable in the grand scheme of things.  And restating data seems to be a touchy subject with respect to climate these days 

You can recreate the daily's pretty easy though, just dump your daily data into excel, and add a column to do the math, then total that column for each month.  Probaby only take a few minutes to get all your months done.  The long part would be recall and changing the monthly data points in VWS.  (BACKUP your data, before, during, after....)

It would be nice (if not expected) if this variable was tied to your unit choice though.  Day 1 when I said metric it should have turned the 65 F into an 18.33, that would negate the need to restate data.  I think it was an oversight by the software author.  It should either be auto as I indicated, or at least part of the first time setup flow so its not found several months/years later.

Andrew

Andrew,

Thank you for the info on this! I'll try it for the winter and summer months. My problem is that I also have fall and spring data periods that need to be adjusted. I guess (as you say), if a month has both heating and cooling days it makes things more complicated to do manually, since each day need to be calculated separately.

Really wish there was an option in vws to recalculate these values (if one decides to change base temp), or a third party solution that would go through the vws data base.

grub

[grub]

Just as my heating days, all wrong under "Table and statistics 1" on my (Swedish) page www.slattanasvadret.se
You're probably right, this is a low priority thing among everything else... and yes climate data processing can be a sensitive stuff (me actually being a climatologist by profession myself  )
I'll probably take your advice and do it in Excel, thanks!
 
grub

No problem grub.

I have never seen a metric vws user that has a properly configured degree days setup.  Most have heating days in the several thousands, and zero degree cooling days due to using 65 vs 18.

I dont think your wish for an automated fix will ever happen.  Not a really critical variable in the grand scheme of things.  And restating data seems to be a touchy subject with respect to climate these days  

You can recreate the daily's pretty easy though, just dump your daily data into excel, and add a column to do the math, then total that column for each month.  Probaby only take a few minutes to get all your months done.  The long part would be recall and changing the monthly data points in VWS.  (BACKUP your data, before, during, after....)

It would be nice (if not expected) if this variable was tied to your unit choice though.  Day 1 when I said metric it should have turned the 65 F into an 18.33, that would negate the need to restate data.  I think it was an oversight by the software author.  It should either be auto as I indicated, or at least part of the first time setup flow so its not found several months/years later.

Andrew

Andrew,

Thank you for the info on this! I'll try it for the winter and summer months. My problem is that I also have fall and spring data periods that need to be adjusted. I guess (as you say), if a month has both heating and cooling days it makes things more complicated to do manually, since each day need to be calculated separately.

Really wish there was an option in vws to recalculate these values (if one decides to change base temp), or a third party solution that would go through the vws data base.

grub