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Weather Related Organizations => WeatherUnderground => Topic started by: B58Mach2 on May 02, 2019, 11:18:13 AM
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I just set up my PWS and connected it to Weather Underground. It assigned me a neighborhood which is several miles from my location. This "neighborhood" displays on the map, but there is nothing there and no one seems to know anything about it. Can I change the neighborhood to something that is more descriptive of my location?
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This seems to be related to the system updates going on. There have been several previous posts on this.You may want to search within these forums for previous explanations. At this time this may be what it is until the rollout is done. The suggestion is to do nothing but wait. Making changes may just add to your issues.
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I just set up my PWS and connected it to Weather Underground. It assigned me a neighborhood which is several miles from my location. This "neighborhood" displays on the map, but there is nothing there and no one seems to know anything about it. Can I change the neighborhood to something that is more descriptive of my location?
Here is one of the threads
https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=36578.0
Guessing soon, WU will have multiple stations with the same station name #-o
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Here is another -
http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=36685.0
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This is all to do with Google's crappie location App
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This is all to do with Google's crappie location App
How do you know it isn't OpenStreetMap, the base map that WU uses?
In my area, it shows two place names that were old post offices in the 1890s and have not been used since. I've often wondered how these names survived to make it into some computer-era GIS file that OpenStreetMap picks up and uses. The "place" it tries to assign my station to is the name of a housing development about a half-mile away. Few few of the place names on my WU dashboard map are current post office or municipality names. It's quirky, but not something that WU itself controls.
Rich K.
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This is all to do with Google's crappie location App
How do you know it isn't OpenStreetMap, the base map that WU uses?
In my area, it shows two place names that were old post offices in the 1890s and have not been used since. I've often wondered how these names survived to make it into some computer-era GIS file that OpenStreetMap picks up and uses. The "place" it tries to assign my station to is the name of a housing development about a half-mile away. Few few of the place names on my WU dashboard map are current post office or municipality names. It's quirky, but not something that WU itself controls.
Rich K.
Probably using old USGS maps. Or, could be the USGS Geographic Names Information Service (GNIS).
https://geonames.usgs.gov/apex/f?p=138:1:0 (https://geonames.usgs.gov/apex/f?p=138:1:0)
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I am sorry, but I don't understand why people insist this issue has something to do with bad mapping software.
Previously, the PWS owner could set the neighborhood (station) name to what every they desired and that is the name that would be displayed. Now, the neighborhood name is being set automatically based on location. I agree that in some cases the location may not be completely accurate, but that is not the REAL problem. The real problem is that the PWS owner cannot uniquely name their station anymore. For example, I have a station and my next door neighbor has a station, with the automatic naming based on location we will undoubtedly end up with the exact same name for both stations.
In the attached picture, the item circled in blue should be the city and automatically set by location. The item circled in red (the neighborhood) should be set by the PWS owner to allow unique identification of a particular station within a city.
What am I missing?
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The OP asked, "Can I change the neighborhood to something that is more descriptive of my location?". Again, this is the REAL problem because you cannot.
This issue is really frustrating me, and I want to ensure WU understands the actual problem we are asking be fixed. The solution is straightforward and simple to implement, allow the PWS owner to manually set the neighborhood/station name value.
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The solution is straightforward and simple to implement, allow the PWS owner to manually set the neighborhood/station name value.
Oddly enough, the "my devices" page lets you enter a name for your PWS. Why it isn't using that is anyone's guess, and I'm not gonna risk screwing mine up to test the theory. However, given the other PWS database problems (internal, not from some external source) I doubt we'll ever see this resolved.
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The solution is straightforward and simple to implement, allow the PWS owner to manually set the neighborhood/station name value.
Oddly enough, the "my devices" page lets you enter a name for your PWS. Why it isn't using that is anyone's guess, and I'm not gonna risk screwing mine up to test the theory. However, given the other PWS database problems (internal, not from some external source) I doubt we'll ever see this resolved.
Great observation WSWeather. I have over the last few weeks changed the name in "My Devices" a number of times and it has had no impact on the neighborhood/station name displayed. And, I wouldn't risk it either with an existing station that is displaying the desired name...
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Interesting. I saw this briefly for a few days last week when all the weather stations in my neighborhood got renamed to the name of the neighborhood. So they all looked like the same station! Super dumb. Then after a day or two everything fixed itself, and all the stations went back to their original descriptive names. I think some diddling was going on in the WU server room, and super dumbness revealed itself.
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It looks like they have done it!!! Here is what I now see for my station -
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
I really appreciate WU getting this done. More good things to come I hope.
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It looks like they have done it!!! Here is what I now see for my station -
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
I really appreciate WU getting this done. More good things to come I hope.
not seeing any changes here
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Looks like it's half fixed.
This is what I named my pws [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
And looking here it's still showing wrong [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KILROCKF100
https://www.wunderground.com/weather/us/il/rockford/42.19%2C-89.06
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I noticed the same thing a few days ago.
Your PWS dashboard shows your name for your station.
Everywhere else it's what WU thinks is your location, even though mine is wrong.
Hey, it's progress.
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Strange. Most of my neighborhood weather stations are showing unique names, though a few seem to have defaulted to the name of the neighborhood (unless they actually chose that name intentionally, which isn't smart). As I said a few weeks ago, this has changed from a month ago when ALL my local weather stations showed the name of the neighborhood. Something funny going on here. But I consider it an improvement.
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Hey, it's progress.
I'm not so generous. All they did was tack the ID on the name you already knew, and only on the PWS dashboard page, which doesn't address the problem they created. It still shows either the name you gave it years ago (if you are really lucky) or the automagically-generated name they want it to display (which is useless) everywhere else. You also still can't save a specific PWS as a favorite, and the page still loads like it is dragging the entire data center behind it.
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Between this and other forums some people have deleted their stations and signing up with another hoping to correct this only with the same results. Best to wait it out and re evaluate the situation later.
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OK, so it's been 6 months and nothing has changed, right?
Does anyone from Weather Underground visit these forums?
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Does anyone from Weather Underground visit these forums?
Not very likely.
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OK, so it's been 6 months and nothing has changed, right?
Nada
But watch this space for updates:
https://trello.com/c/koohtgbX
Does anyone from Weather Underground visit these forums?
WU said goodbye to this forum some time ago. Who knows if they will return. But it is only human nature to be curious, so I'm sure they pop-in anonymously and read what we say from time to time.
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Great info, thank you. I was not familiar with trello, but now I am, I guess.