Topic: Looking For A Historical Calendar View Of Forecatsed Versus Actual Weather Data

[textech]

I am looking for a way to display Forecast Weather Data (Temp&Precip) along with the Actual Data in a Calendar format.

I gather the Forecast Data for my area using Virtual Weather Station out 5 days. I gather the Actual Data with my home weather station.

I would like to be able to display the 5 Day Forecast Data along with the Historical Actual Data on a Calendar by month. This would provide me with a good view of the Forecasted Temp&Precip right along with the Actual Temp&Precip for the day.

So the calendar would build throughout the year gathering and displaying the Forecast and Actual Data. I would like to be able to click on any historical month within the year to get a look at Forecast versus Actual.

Does anyone have an interactive calendar view that could be tweaked for something like this?

[iisfaq]

It is an interesting idea but I think quite a bit of work to get the calendar accurate.

I guess one of the problems that I see with this is at what point is the forecast considered the actual forecast for comparison reasons?

For example I am using WXSIM to generate a forecast for me every hour. At what point do you compare the forecast against actual?

3 hours prior to the "compare" time, and what is the compare time? 9am, 3pm, both?

My forecast generally does not change a lot the same day but small changes do occur during the day.

Do you break down the day into 2 halves? or maybe night and day? or Morning, Afternoon, and Evening?

Do you have any thoughts on how you want the data displayed? Would you have a temperature graph displayed? the list is almost endless.

I know most people do not have very accurate data for cloud as it is hard to estimate clouds without additional hardware.

I have a hardware cloud sensor (quite cheap) and I am trying to get more accurate cloud readings for my site as I use its data to calculate my current conditions which changes every minute.

It has a sensor temperature and a sky temperature. But on a really hot clear day the sensor is very high like 40-60 degrees C and the sky can be 10-15C. But on a mild day with no clouds the sensor can be 25 degrees and the sky in the negatives.

I am currently trying a matrix of cells 19 wide by about 30 long ranging from -35C to 55C along the x axis (sensor temperature) and -38C to 60C along the y axis (sky temperature). I then specify the cloud value based on XY coordinate. It is a bit hit and miss but it may work out better than my previous approach just comparing the values.

So even determining that it was "Cloudy" all morning is quite a bit of work - some of this raw data can bee see at http://weather.crowe.co.nz/SkyClarity/

Rain is another issue, at what point do you say it "rained" today 0.2mm, 1mm? More than xx minutes?

Interesting idea though for a calendar.

Chris

[textech]

I have my station setup to reset collected weather data daily at midnight. I was thinking that having the 4:00pm NOAA Forecasted Data captured by my weather station software and logged to the historical calendar view daily would be what I wanted.

You are correct in saying that the forecasting data changes hour by hour, but I was looking for a general comparison view of the general forecast versus the actual data captured by the weather station. The forecasting data captured from NOAA on 4:00pm Monday for Tuesday will most likely change some, but from the 4:00pm forecast I would be making a good determination about my next days activity schedule so that is the comparative data I would like to capture. Others may want to capture their forecasting data from a different time frame for historical references.

I just thought it would be neat to have a historical view of forecasted weather versus actual captured weather from a single point in time on a five day basis. Most people tell me that weather forecasting is mostly inaccurate. I think with a tool like this we could see the reality of our local forecasting that posted versus actual.

[Bushman]

I'd use an SQL database to provide the repository for this "hindcast"  There are already examples out there of such functionality.