Topic: VWS Software - Web Info on index.htm

[Ronnie1055]

I promised I have looked everywhere and have not been able to find my answer... so I broke down and finally posted the question.

I have a weather website using VWS... been using this for many years and pretty much love it.  The issue I am having is on the main page which uses the file index.htm file.  This is what I am seeing:
Rainfall Totals
Hourly Rain    0.00 in
Daily Rain:    0.02 in
Monthly Rain:    0.22 in
Yearly Rain:    20.65 in
Normal Rain, month to date:    0.00 in
Normal Rain, year to date:    0.00 in

I have never been able to get Normal Rain, month to date: or Normal Rain, year to date: totals.

What am I missing??   Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Ronnie

[mackbig]

What's you web page URL? location?

This information probably comes from the local metar that you are downloading conditions/forecasts from.  I am guessing that if you local station does not provide this information, then VWS will be unable to display anything but zero's.

For instance the international.htx used outside of the States, does not even have these values on thier template. International sites get their data from WU (i think) using WMMO codes... This data is probably inconsistent so it is not presented.

Its possible that even in US, certains metars do not provide normals, so there is nothing to show.

Would need your site, or the metar you are using to validate.

Andrew

[Ronnie1055]

Andrew...

Thanks for the reply... I will take a look and see.  I am in the DFW area so I should have lots of options as far as reporting stations go.  I will try another and post later this evening.

Thank you...

Ronnie

[mackbig]

Yes DFW, not like you are in the boonies, so it would make sense for your local to have the values....

I just found two sites using this tag "successfully".

Successfully is in brackets.   Meaning they have positive values in these fields, however the data is wrong. 

In each case their "Normal Rain, year to date: ##.45 in " is actually according to the NWS CLI report, the actual year to date precip measure....  Without mentioning names, one is in VA, and one is in WV.  Sorry did not mean to pick on you, but I knew you both used pretty stock vws templates as your site base.

So I guess this is a bug in the VWS tag logic??? One is using ver 14 and one 13 so its not an upgrade issue.

Andrew

[lddaly]

Andrew...

Thanks for the reply... I will take a look and see.  I am in the DFW area so I should have lots of options as far as reporting stations go.  I will try another and post later this evening.

Thank you...

Ronnie

Welcome to the Forum!!! Where in DFW? URL?

[Ronnie1055]

Thanks for the welcome...

Actually Carrollton (Denton County).

My URL:  http://mysite.verizon.net/respdvgs/

[Ronnie1055]

Got it... it is a shame that I had to use DFW airport in order to get readings for normal month and year rainfall totals.  BUT... that is the official reporting station for this area.  I tried all 3 of our zip codes and Addison as well... none of them showed any monthly or yearly averages.  Hmmm... go figure.  May try Plano... it is a whole lot closer than DFW airport.

Anyway... thanks for all the suggestions!!!   

Cheers,
Ronnie

[mackbig]

Ronni,
Glad it worked out for you.

Although, see what I mean. 
http://www.weather.gov/climate/getclimate.php?wfo=fwd
The normal for Fort Worth is 21.33 YTD, the actual YTD 2009 is 21.72, and that is what VWS is showing on your page.

So having said that, if the forecast/current conditions is more accurate using one of the other stations, I would scrap that html from your template and go from there.   There is actually a way you could use both, I think, but its pretty complicated.   I think you could change primary metar back to what you were using before, put DFW in as the second one, then change the rain normal YTD tag to date: ^almytd2^

Andrew

Got it... it is a shame that I had to use DFW airport in order to get readings for normal month and year rainfall totals.  BUT... that is the official reporting station for this area.  I tried all 3 of our zip codes and Addison as well... none of them showed any monthly or yearly averages.  Hmmm... go figure.  May try Plano... it is a whole lot closer than DFW airport.

Anyway... thanks for all the suggestions!!!   

Cheers,
Ronnie

[dsscheibe]

KPHX Phoenix also appears to be reporting actual rain data for Normal Rain To Date, either that or it's a Wunderground problem.  Saw on the news last night our normal is 6.3" and my page is showing "Normal Rain, year to date:    2.33 in"  I've emailed Ed about it but todate his answers have not been helpful about anything I've asked him about, but he does answer.