Author Topic: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts  (Read 18770 times)

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Offline Randall Kayfes

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #50 on: April 09, 2013, 07:46:17 PM »
Thank you I will give it a try!



Offline Randall Kayfes

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #51 on: April 10, 2013, 10:47:42 AM »
BTW on April 7, my PWS had a high wind of 48 and dozens of reading above 35 mph.
WU's reported a high gust 33 mph...
Wow is WU inaccurate!



Offline Randall Kayfes

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #52 on: April 10, 2013, 11:12:40 AM »
Ok I am gathering data with wireshark as we speak...  Waiting for wind gusts to show differential.



Offline LABob

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #53 on: April 10, 2013, 11:30:53 AM »
I'd sure be interested to see where the issue lies. Do you think it's a coincidence that the error is close (but not exactly) to the error you would expect to see if WU was converting your units from KPH to MPH? 33 mph is 53 kph.

Offline Randall Kayfes

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #54 on: April 11, 2013, 09:27:01 AM »
Wireshark is capturing a lot of info!  I believe the IP address I am trying to capture is 38.102.136.123 can anyone confirm this?

I will keep everyone up to date as this rolls out.

BTW I sent WU another tickler regarding the lack of accuracy in wind gust data. Here is the latest response - just more questions already asked and answered before - but at least it is a response:

Hello,
Are you using Davis WeatherLink with a Davis station? Do you use the IP logger and have Davis forward data to us, or do you send directly to Wunderground?
Regards,
William
Wunderground Support



Offline LABob

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #55 on: April 11, 2013, 11:22:56 AM »
Wireshark is capturing a lot of info!  I believe the IP address I am trying to capture is 38.102.136.123 can anyone confirm this?

That IP address is registered to Wunderground, so it seems reasonable that it's the correct IP. Just capture those packets and save them to a file. I'd be happy to look at a file containing the data from a time when the gust info on WU is incorrect.

I should be getting my gear tomorrow that will allow me to test this issue myself.

Offline Randall Kayfes

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #56 on: April 13, 2013, 12:28:07 PM »
Another response from WU:

Hello,
Could you send us RapidFire data? I'm thinking that maybe the higher gusts are happening between the reports, and for some reason they're not being sent or processed.
William
Wunderground Support


I turned on Rapid Fire...




Offline Randall Kayfes

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #57 on: April 24, 2013, 09:30:36 AM »
I beginning to think William is the only support person they have, which even if that is not true I am beginning to they are understaffed.

BTW, they suggested I turn on RF on my end.  I did and that completely corrected the low wind gust issue.  The problem with that is that RF pretty much makes it impossible to much of anything else unless I switch user accounts....



Offline LABob

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #58 on: April 24, 2013, 10:10:25 AM »
This seems like a software issue. Weather Underground accepts wind gust data as a separate field from current wind speed. This means the software uploading data to Weather Underground can report the maximum wind speeds from the last X minutes in addition to the current instantaneous wind speed. It seems like perhaps some software is not doing that.
« Last Edit: April 24, 2013, 10:14:41 AM by LABob »

Offline Randall Kayfes

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #59 on: April 26, 2013, 06:59:58 AM »
This seems like a software issue. Weather Underground accepts wind gust data as a separate field from current wind speed. This means the software uploading data to Weather Underground can report the maximum wind speeds from the last X minutes in addition to the current instantaneous wind speed. It seems like perhaps some software is not doing that.

I would agree completely. But one cannot ignore that WL gets the job done perfectly with CWOPS with no additional software necessary.  So then if we look at WL and WU it gets very convoluted because WL uses an applet made by WU.  Now we have both companies pointing the proverbial finger at the other each. There is no doubt the data is not properly propagating to the data field. However is WL software at fault for not handing off the data to the applet or is WU at fault for not assigning the data it to the proper field with their applet.

The most frustrating part is that given the number of years this has gone on it seems a lack of data integrity does not bother either Davis or Weather Underground enough to solve the problem.  Davis simply blames WU and WU asks the same questions that have already been asked and answered over and over again. When all we want is data integrity...
« Last Edit: April 26, 2013, 07:19:24 AM by kaymann »



Offline BisbeeHouse

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #60 on: April 26, 2013, 11:10:24 AM »
I also believe it is a software issue.  Granted on RF somehow WU remembers the reported gusts and posts the highest result at their standard 5 minute intervals.  I cannot use RF, it will freeze my laptop if I do anything else and then it stops working. So I have gone with 1 minute reports to WU thinking the gusts would be handled just like RF. What I don't know is the WU applet not reporting the highest gust within that 1 minute time period or is WU not storing this highest gust to post on my data page.  I thought one of you were looking at the raw data being sent to WU, are we sending bad data for that 1 minute time interval or is their system not reporting it right?  Just a thought.
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Offline LABob

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #61 on: April 26, 2013, 01:05:31 PM »
The release notes of the WU Expansion Module for WeatherLink contain the following statement:

Quote
fixed wind gust in non realtime mode. Since there is no way to obtain the console's current wind gust, database is used to grab wind gust, and gust time is checked to make sure it is recent.

As a programmer myself, I interpret this statement to mean that the WeatherLink software doesn't allow WU access to the wind gust data in the Davis console, and that the WU software tries to make due by finding the highest recent wind speed in the database and using that for the gust.

Offline BisbeeHouse

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #62 on: April 26, 2013, 05:43:15 PM »
The release notes of the WU Expansion Module for WeatherLink contain the following statement:

Quote
fixed wind gust in non realtime mode. Since there is no way to obtain the console's current wind gust, database is used to grab wind gust, and gust time is checked to make sure it is recent.

As a programmer myself, I interpret this statement to mean that the WeatherLink software doesn't allow WU access to the wind gust data in the Davis console, and that the WU software tries to make due by finding the highest recent wind speed in the database and using that for the gust.

I question what database is WU looking at and for how far back.  When I report every minute (shortest allowed without using RF) I would think it should be able to find the gust every one minute.
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Offline LABob

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #63 on: May 02, 2013, 01:18:08 PM »
I question what database is WU looking at and for how far back.  When I report every minute (shortest allowed without using RF) I would think it should be able to find the gust every one minute.

I'm guessing that it's looking at each 1-minute report for the last 10? minutes and reporting the largest wind speed as the "gust." Does that comport with what you see?

Offline vaughanweather

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Re: Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #64 on: May 02, 2013, 10:03:48 PM »
I've been using Virtual VP and VPLive to feed my data to CWOP & WU using rapid fire settings for a few years now.

My wind gust data is always accurate except when the gust data occurs at speeds above 38 mph. Often the highest gust WU will show is maybe 1-2 MPH slower than what WeatherLink, Weather Display and CWOP capture which is also what my console also records as the high gust.

I believe the issue to be in the way WU captures the data using rapid fire. Another weather station I own and maintain which operates the exact same way as above bur only uploads data every 5 minutes seems to never have gust issues period.

Offline Weather Display

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #65 on: May 02, 2013, 10:40:50 PM »
if you set WD to update WU , and you have set to send max gust since last data send, then I think you should find there is no problems
Brian
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Offline LABob

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #66 on: May 06, 2013, 02:18:34 AM »
I discovered today that the wind gust in WU is the same as the two-minute high wind speed reported by WeatherLink.

Offline Randall Kayfes

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #67 on: May 06, 2013, 10:40:11 AM »
Does that mean that WU is reporting the wrong data?

LABob you have moved this forward more than either Davis or WU have been able to do in the years we have been "looking" at this problem.  Thank you!

Just so you know Davis has very consistently placed full blame on WU.  They have been quoted several times as saying they did not build the WU module therefore they are completely absolved.  Their most recent email as of two days ago reflects that same attitude.  WU has played the "go figure" card every single time a inquiry is made.  They ask the same questions over and over and over.  If you miss one question even if you have answered that question numerous times before they disengage.  The bottom line is both entities are hoping no one notices the data is wrong.  If they come up with a fix it could highlight the fact that data has been very wrong for many years.

I wish I could move away from WU since the data is inaccurate, but I have many "followers" on smart phones and they are thoroughly hooked on the WU app.

OK, I am done ranting... LABob anything we can do with this new found insight?



Offline LABob

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #68 on: May 06, 2013, 10:44:24 AM »
Does that mean that WU is reporting the wrong data?

I don't know because I'm not using WeatherLink to upload to WU. What I see is that when I keep WeatherLink open at the same time as WU, the gust speed displayed by WU is the same speed as the value WeatherLink displays as the highest wind speed in the last two minutes. They change values in lockstep.

Offline dasman

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #69 on: May 22, 2013, 10:15:04 PM »
I may have made an improvement on my end to get more accurate wind gust readings on WU.

Let me start by saying I know alot of you in this thread are using WD for uploading.  I am using VWS, and have had the same wind gust issue as you for years.
I am not claiming to have this corrected, but at the very least I have improved it on my end greatly.

In trying to get VWS for the past few years to report the correct gust info, I have played with the settings in the software that defines what VWS uses as a gust.  I have had multiple people, including Ed at Ambient, suggest how to set these settings.  The consensus was to set VWS tp calculate based on "Max windspeed in database update period" and gust samples at anywhere from 20 to 100.  Then for the filtered time constraint (which is in minutes) to 1 minute.  For me it was no better and no worse then what I was already getting.  There were days that WU was 10-15mph below on my gust. 

Then the other day I decided to increase the filtered time constraint to 60 minutes, gust samples to 100, and to insure my data base update period was 10 minutes.  For the past 3 days, WU has had the right gust data.  Now 3 days does not mean it is solved, but before the change WU only had the correct info once or twice a month.  So I am optamistic!  I do not know if this will help those of you with WD but it may help those with VWS. I should say that the reason I changed the settings again the other day is because I noticed that WU had bad gust info after a storm rolled through, and my web page was off by 1mph.  I had a high daily gust of 48mph, but my yearly high was 47mph.  I checked my NOAA data and it was correct at 48mph.  So I figured the settings in the software and/or the data base timing had a chance at being the issue. I will watch the data for a few more days and then report back.
Dave Sommerfed
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Offline Weather Display

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #70 on: May 22, 2013, 11:17:43 PM »
not sure why you are dragging WD into it though, as I dont know of any WD users with a WU gust problem
Brian
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Offline dasman

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #71 on: May 23, 2013, 05:29:58 PM »
My appologies that you interpreted my thread that way!  This is exactly why I make my wife stop texting when there is an issue with the person she is texting.  Sometimes what one writes is not interpreted as it was intended when it was written.  There are mentions of WD in this thread.  I simply "meant" that my issues are VWS specific.  As I do not have WD nor have I ever used it, I cannot follow what has been written about it!  My intention was to sepperate the 2 pieces of software.  If my novice writing has offended or been interpreted as an attack on the software then I sincerely appologise.

As a side note I now have 4 straight days with VWS and WU agreeing on the max wind gust!
Dave Sommerfed
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Offline Randall Kayfes

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #72 on: May 26, 2013, 10:47:31 AM »
I am pretty sure that I will build my own web page then shut down WU.  I think WU will then pick up my CWOP data which will be completely accurate then.



Offline dasman

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #73 on: May 26, 2013, 10:19:25 PM »
Well the party is over.  2 straight days of VWS and WU disagreeing on the high wind gust, after agreeing for 4 straight days.
Dave Sommerfed
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Offline GaryStofer

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Re: I am So Tired of WU and Wind Gusts
« Reply #74 on: June 04, 2013, 01:07:08 AM »
Always happens to me. It seems it never captures the highest gust. Also when my highest gust is recorded on WD it happens sometimes when the site is updating at 5 minute intervals so it doesn't get recorded. Why is that?
You need to report a 10 minute wind gust in your upload