Topic: analyst program is a phony

[Scalphunter]

 Well  CWOP  has  done it again. I am only PWS station in 200miles and  they sure like to single  me out among all the government stations  around  like  10 in 100 miles of the station 5 with in 15 miles. They say I have a solar problem yet  weather been cold and cloudy  past 2 days . Very heavy cloud cover  yesterday was  snow durning afternoon. There seems to be a double standard for their program. Secretive on  who they compare you with and  when  there is a discretive with  gov  station  nothing is said.  But then again hard to e-mail a AWOS station. Anyway who  are we beening compared to I don't see another station in my  back yard to compare things with, Looks to me  he taking a comparison with all the stations and if you are not  the same then your station is in error. I have sent  stuff to him about this  before and got no response like it not important. About ready to discontinue send. APRS program was set up years ago for  us hams that was into packet and this CWOP seem to be a johnny come lately and with addition of the non hams it has gone to hell in a hand basket

John
KL7IFP

By the  way am with in 0.05  to 1 deg of all stations and  .05  MB  of the closes station to me.

[tinplate]

There are two quality checks. One is performed by scripts developed by Phil Gladstone. This is the main QC on CWOP data. However, data is not thrown out because of this analysis' results. This was just something a private individual did on his own time, on his own equipment, as a service to CWOP members. Its sole use is to give CWOP stations a heads up on the possibility of a problem with their sensors. Determining whether there is or isn't an actual problem is entirely up to the CWOP member.

The second quality check is performed by the MADIS system after the CWOP data is ingested. This is something that is applied to all ingested data. There are many data networks that feed into MADIS, of which CWOP is just one of many. There is publicly available information on the various checks MADIS performs. These checks are performed against individual data points for every station. Consumers (which means various NWS and University computer programs) can use the MADIS QC results to filter data they utilize. In general, data has to be very whacked out to get flagged by MADIS.

The quality checks are just computer algorithms that munge data. They are not meant to be taken as personal insults of station owners.

As for the APRS/CWOP connection, there is not a lot of connection anymore. Non-HAM CWOP members send data directly to servers set up specifically for non-HAM CWOP members. HAM users submit to APRS servers that no longer accept data from non-HAM CWOP folks. The only thing in common is the specification for the data packet structure.

[Scalphunter]

 It may be his  program but it is a bad program it  can not look out the window and see what is going on here. When it continues to show  bad   data  that says I have a problem then it is not good. Kind of like  a mechanic saying you got   a valve problem when you has  a con rod bearing going out. Funny we got a AWOS  station here with a  bad humidity  sensor . been that way for 2 months now. reading close to 0 humid and sometime below it  yet  it passes  both his and madis checks. Now tell me there i not a problem.  I wrote to Gladstone several times  about staion  in wrong place. one metat 65 miles off station  no answer . Wrote to him about  this on going data  problem . No answer. Even in his news letter/problem solver and all i got was people defending him except of one guy and he called like I just did. You can  analyis stuff when the topo  has so many micro climates. northern exporsures verus southern, ets. But explain to be how I could have a solar radiation probllem when the weather is heavy cloud cover. Evem the solar thermometer didn't get over 10 degrees in the past 2 days in my "solar in a jar. I do know a sure cure and all that takes is to hit the discontinue switch.

John
KL7IFP

[Weather Display]

my suggestion would be to
a)
dont look at that comparison stuff
b)
dont send any data anymore

[Scalphunter]

I'll just do that GBW.  No one uses data from Alaska  anyways ..... Thanks for the suggestion.

[tinplate]

If the bad nearby station is PANT on Annette Island, MADIS is not passing it. http://www.met.utah.edu/cgi-bin/droman/trend_zip.cgi?zipcode=99901&radius=25&noho=2&rawsflag=3

The people who defend Phil's QC probably do so because they take it for what it is, and don't expect more from it. In isolation, it doesn't know which stations have reliable data, and which don't. It does a comparison of nearby stations, and if most stations agree and one doesn't, it flags it. That's pretty much all it can do. It can't look out the window.

As an example, during fall, winter and spring, my relative humidity and dew point track perfectly with the stations around me. But during the summer, I get thumbs down. The reason is because all the other stations are in the middle of agricultural areas that are heavily irrigated by flood and sprinkler irrigation. I'm at the edge of miles of native dry land (that's very dry in the summer) and the land I'm on is dry land. So my humidity and dew point look low compared to other stations. But there is no way a QC program would know that. In your case the QC is even harder to perform because there are practically no nearby stations, so there really isn't an opportunity to gather a statistical consensus. In my case, I just ignore the QC thumbs down I get in the summer because I know that it is microclimate induced, not sensor error induced. You should do the same if you think your bad QC is because of an insufficient comparison base, and/or faulty data from a nearby station (which is magnified when there are not a sufficient number of good stations to overrule it).

[Scalphunter]

 PAMM was the  bad station. PANT is the NWS staion here  in our area and is manned. It was the old airport before they moved to the new one where th bridge to nowhere was to be  built. But as usual when others  want your money, oil and timber they get what they want and our infra struture suffers.  If MADIS (Mesowest) is flagging the data not it is only after I wrote to them asking  how it was passing there checks  because the where saying it was good.  PAMM is the seadrome for  floatplanes at Metlakatla. One nasty spot to set down at. yes I know what you are saying and It really stands out when you don't have a bunch of station to hide the facts. I shut off CWOP AS to GBW suggestion in his all wisdom answer of which he is  so good to put in my posting here on the  board and I thank him  very much  for his answer, Also thanks Tinplate for your time

Dohiyi

John

[Weather Display]

I shut off CWOP AS to GBW suggestion in his all wisdom

note that its actualy your suggestion, from your first post

and I was just adding it as an option ...the better option would be to not look at the comparison data

[tomcj2]

I shut off CWOP

Without your accurate data their analysis will be even further from the truth.

[d_l]

I share John's concerns about what's the point of submitting CWOP data when the rest of the data pool can be "garbaged" up by a few bad apples spewing out incorrect data.

This is what has discouraged me from submitting CWOP data.  I've long thought that the closest Mesonet station to me is mis-located by a mile and a half. Today I finally hiked over to its purported location according to Google maps to verify what I'd suspected for sometime.  The station wasn't really there! 

This about something as fundamental as getting the station's location correct.  It is run by a govenment organization and yet they couldn't even manage to plot its location on the correct golf course for crying out loud! This mis-location has been published for years, maybe as many as nine, yet has the location ever once been flagged as erroneous or suspect? If they can't get the location any more correct than a mile and a half off, can any other data from there be trusted?

[tomcj2]

when the rest of the data pool can be "garbaged" up by a few bad apples spewing out incorrect data.

The effect of the few bad ones is diminished by removing some bad ones or adding more good ones.  I have no control over the bad, but I can, and do,  increase the good. 

[andro700]

Where I am at in Glendive Montana the AWOS 5 miles from me has a faulty humidity sensor as well. It has been like that since I have been here. Here is the link to there page and of course throws my humidity off as well.

AWOS:
http://weather.gladstonefamily.net/qchart/KGDV?date=20090301

Mine:
http://weather.gladstonefamily.net/cgi-bin/wxqchart.pl?site=C4714

Chuck

[W Thomas]

I have the same problems here with my dewpoint calculations from CWOP. All the humidity and baro track fairly close with the majority of the other stations but there are a few on the list that maybe 2 or 3 Mb less or more than my baro reading as well as the others. One bad apple spoils the whole barrel on this sort of analysis.I always try to have the most accurate data as I can but there's always room for improvement! I know most of the time my data is not that bad but it's just that I hate to have the big red X if Ic an do something to make it better..but after all it's a general calculation I suppose

[ocala]

I share John's concerns about what's the point of submitting CWOP data when the rest of the data pool can be "garbaged" up by a few bad apples spewing out incorrect data.

This is what has discouraged me from submitting CWOP data.  I've long thought that the closest Mesonet station to me is mis-located by a mile and a half. Today I finally hiked over to its purported location according to Google maps to verify what I'd suspected for sometime.  The station wasn't really there! 

This about something as fundamental as getting the station's location correct.  It is run by a govenment organization and yet they couldn't even manage to plot its location on the correct golf course for crying out loud! This mis-location has been published for years, maybe as many as nine, yet has the location ever once been flagged as erroneous or suspect? If they can't get the location any more correct than a mile and a half off, can any other data from there be trusted?

Well I guess I'm here to defend CWOP.
D_l if that station is mis-located then drop Phillip Gladstone an email and tell him. I'm not sure where Phillip is located but all he can go by is the publicly available coordinates for that station. He can't visit every station to verify it's accuracy. That's where the members can help.
 CWOP isn't perfect but it's probably the best you can get when you have to rely on the public to submit correct data. They don't know that you have a bad sensor or that your positioning of the sensors is wrong or that the location you submitted is inaccurate. They also can't contact you to question your data because people would take it personally so they have to broad brush the data to do a QC. That procedure also isn't 100% accurate but it's the best they have. If you see a station that's an outlier contact them your selves and see if the problem can be alleviated.
On the other hand if you feel CWOP isn't worth your time then don't send your data. No one is forcing you too. If you get red X's instead of two thumbs up investigate why that is instead of assuming that the QC program is flawed. You may not agree with your findings but at least you know that your data is correct.

[Scalphunter]

 The station that are in question about there location are US GOVERNMENT Stations, If they don't know where the station is who else  will. Just about every sea dome ( Flostplane) landing  area here has them  from the  middle of the  channel  to 65  miles  away. Have send   Mr. gladstone  mail about them with correct lat/long. which was checked. via 2 mehods. One printed FAA publication with the old eye ball against  what they where saying. I think most of us who  do  set up a station go thru  great pains to see that our  locatios are  correct.  By the way don't belive  that goggle is rigth either   it has us 2 miles from where we really are when we type in address. Also the island  name is wrong. They have us as Unimak Island which is around  a  1000 miles to the wnw of us. MSN  map has us on the rigth island .  Revillagegido Island.

John
KL7IFP

[ocala]

Good old US Government. Can't even locate their weather stations right.
That's great that you emailed Phillip about that but he's the only person taking care of that. Remember he volunteers his time and with over 6000 members things could get lost in the shuffle. I would encourage you to keep sending it until you get a reply. In my communication with him in the past he's always got back to me, although sometimes late.

[Sigdigit]

Morbid thought, but I keep wondering what would happen to CWOP if Phil buys the farm.  Is there a #2????

[W Thomas]

If you get red X's instead of two thumbs up investigate why that is instead of assuming that the QC program is flawed. You may not agree with your findings but at least you know that your data is correct.

That is my situatiom pretty much.. I have the 2 thumbs up for MADIS quality but the red cross for CWOP.. Data can't really be all that bad or I would show it there too. As it says you should always strive for 2 thumbs up..if doing that then thats bout all you can do..easily anyway.  I know in my case it normally comes back around to a green check in a few weeks with no intervention from me.
I  don't want to be the station spewing bad data so that is why I constantly try to stay ahead of the game on this 
I cant say that the system is actually flawed considering all the variables it deals with.