Got it!
Was using the wrong tags in the Current row. Was using tags from Current section of testtags i.e. %temp% when I should have been using tags from the trends section of testtags like %temp0minuteago%.

Still got to change a few tags in the section below that but I now see a light shining brightly at the end of the tunnel of this recovery..
https://vermilionweather.com/wx5.php

The last NCEP status from an hour ago says still down but I'm now successfully pulling fresh data.

spent ages trying to get this to work but still loosing, I suspect it the way the wxlocal5.html is formatted the tags do work as they are found in the testtags.txt that creates the testtags.php

Welcome to my world. Been working on this for 3 weeks now and just confounded as to the fix.
Thank you for your efforts.

That should work fine.  No entries means no work for nws-alerts.php to do.

I don’t see it (the pricing) considering the basic station is the same design, going back to VP 1 when that came out in 1999/2000.  I’d like to replace my ISS simply because its going on 12 years old, but given the step back many claim with the tipping spoon design of the rain gauge I’d be tempted to put a Rainwise on it and forgo Davis’ altogether.  Considering the humidity sensor is shot given the longevity of them, replacing that and the temperature sensor would be nice.  So far, no supercap leakage issues.

I have to say the new Davis rain bucket is much better then the old one. It doesn't follow my coco gauge exactly but it's much closer then the old one. I'm quite happy with it.