Author Topic: How to Send Email Notification on Rain Start with Meteobridge  (Read 820 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline galfert

  • Global Moderator
  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 6822
How to Send Email Notification on Rain Start with Meteobridge
« on: February 12, 2019, 08:39:42 PM »
User Mchd17 on this forum and I have been discussing how to send a notification email when it starts raining. We did this in the Davis Weatherlink sub. But the conversation turned to discussing this method on the Meteobridge. This thread is to share what we accomplished and give some more details for everyone to enjoy and Metobridge users would more easily find this information and perhaps even add to the discussion by posting this here.

Thread where we started
https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=36108.0

How to configure your Meteobridge to send email notification when it starts raining

It is first necessary to configure the Meteobridge to send outgoing email. There is probably more than one way to configure this but these settings worked for me. I logged into my Yahoo email and then went to my Yahoo account settings and relaxed the login requirements to allow the Meteobridge to be able to log in using SMTP and send email. I used my Yahoo account because it is an account that is not my primary account and I didn't mind relaxing this security. Doing this enables SMTP authentication to be possible by a software client (the Meteobridge). If you want to use an alternative email account then you must ensure that SMTP authentication is possible with that other service.

YAHOO Account Settings:
 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

Then you can configure the Meteobridge to send email out with your fixed Yahoo (or other) account that is set up to allow SMTP outgoing email.

 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

The next step is to build the email notification service. Under the drop down to Select Service choose Email.

 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

Then in the drop down to Select Event Type choose Alarm Condition.

 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

Then click on Add Service Event

 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

You'll then see a blank email notification section above under Event Definition. This event will just incrementally get the next number available. If you haven't previously defined other events then it will be #1. In my case it is #4. This is how you fill it out to get Rain Notification when it begins to rain and then it clears after the rain event stops...and ready for the next rain event. Notice that you don't have to send email to the same account that is being used to send the email. In my case I want this notification to go to my gmail.com address. So my Yahoo account is used to send the notification to my Gmail address.

 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

Don't forget to click SAVE at the bottom of the page




« Last Edit: February 13, 2019, 08:35:58 AM by galfert »
Ecowitt GW1000 | Meteobridge on Raspberry Pi
WU: KFLWINTE111  |  PWSweather: KFLWINTE111
CWOP: FW3708  |  AWEKAS: 14814
Windy: pws-f075acbe
Weather Underground Issue Tracking
Tele-Pole

Offline galfert

  • Global Moderator
  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 6822
Re: How to Send Email Notification on Rain Start with Meteobridge
« Reply #1 on: February 12, 2019, 09:30:47 PM »
In the line that defines the body of the email where I have included the rain rate variable, it may seem pointless to have that there. With testing so far today I don't think it offers much valuable information. But I think it may be possible to tweak this so that the rain rate does yield some information as to the intensity and speed of rainfall.

My thought is to change the check for rain to be something greater than 0. The drawback to this method is that then you aren't being notified the very instant it started raining. As it is already if it is a light drizzle its going to be a couple minutes to get the notification till the 0.01 inches of rain accumulates. So setting the notification to be > 0.01 will notify when rain total is 0.02 inches and then at that point it could issue a better rain rate. You still won't get a perfect rain rate as at least 5 to 10 minutes need to pass to properly determine that. But you could still have some idea may be if it is light rain or fast rain. If you want even more accurate rain rate then set the notification for 0.10 inches or whatever you feel like. But then you risk getting a late notification after rain starts, and you may miss the notification altogether if it doesn't reach that amount.

So I suppose there two ways to look at this. Do you want the fastest notification or would you rather a bit of a delay and then get some idea for how fast it is raining?

So for now I'll be testing the following alternative configuration to see how it works and what results it yields. I think this > 0.01 is probably a good compromise between instant notification and getting an idea of rain rate. All I really want to know is if fast or slow rain is falling so the precise rate of the rainfall is something you can review later via other methods.

 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
« Last Edit: February 13, 2019, 08:42:44 AM by galfert »
Ecowitt GW1000 | Meteobridge on Raspberry Pi
WU: KFLWINTE111  |  PWSweather: KFLWINTE111
CWOP: FW3708  |  AWEKAS: 14814
Windy: pws-f075acbe
Weather Underground Issue Tracking
Tele-Pole

Offline Mchd17

  • Senior Member
  • **
  • Posts: 99
Re: How to Send Email Notification on Rain Start with Meteobridge
« Reply #2 on: February 13, 2019, 06:50:05 AM »
I applaud you...great write up!!

I am using my own web host smtp, I had to allow the smtp port through my router to get the service to work. So if it doesnt work for you......check those ports!

Offline galfert

  • Global Moderator
  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 6822
Re: How to Send Email Notification on Rain Start with Meteobridge
« Reply #3 on: February 13, 2019, 09:54:18 AM »
UPDATE: Good Testing Results with [rain0total-sum60=in.2] > 0.01 setting

After testing with [rain0total-sum60=in.2] > 0.01 it is working great. I've had 2 rain events today and I've only received 2 rain notification emails as expected. The first notification at 12:48AM the rain rate after 0.02 in was reported as 0.19 in/hr. The second notification at 5:43AM the rain rate after 0.02 in was reported as 0.12 in/hr. As you can see from the graph the rain at 12:48AM was more intense (steeper slope) than the light rain at 5:43AM which actually really began at 5:09AM but took a while to accumulate 0.02 to be notified. I think this is acceptable.

 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
« Last Edit: February 13, 2019, 10:28:01 AM by galfert »
Ecowitt GW1000 | Meteobridge on Raspberry Pi
WU: KFLWINTE111  |  PWSweather: KFLWINTE111
CWOP: FW3708  |  AWEKAS: 14814
Windy: pws-f075acbe
Weather Underground Issue Tracking
Tele-Pole