Author Topic: Weird rain data from old station (crosspost from Meteotemplate)  (Read 2711 times)

staze

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Weird rain data from old station (crosspost from Meteotemplate)
« on: February 21, 2019, 05:26:37 PM »
I'm not sure if this is going to get an answer here, or somewhere else, but I'm confused by this.

I had exported my data out of weathercat and imported into Meteotemplate. I THOUGHT everything was good, but looking at my rain analysis, something is clearly wrong. I previously had a LaCrosse 2316 station, and it worked great with Weathercat and before that Lightsoft Weather Center. I got my Davis Vantage Vue in Sept of 2013, after which point, my data looks solid.

Anyone have any thoughts about what the heck is going on? I don't think it's some mm->inches thing since even with that, there's no way I got nearly 840" of rain in 2011/2012.

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staze

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Re: Weird rain data from old station (crosspost from Meteotemplate)
« Reply #1 on: February 21, 2019, 06:26:51 PM »
I found the issue... but I don't know how to fix it. =/

I did a 5 minute export from WC for all time, and for all the data from my previous weatherstation (LaCrosse 2316), the "precipitation total" number seems to be a climbing total that resets every so often (I can't figure out any pattern). Is there any way to re-normalize the data in WC (so it's all just daily totals) (@WCDev)?

Thanks!
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elagache

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Export details? (Re: Weird rain data from old station)
« Reply #2 on: February 22, 2019, 12:31:09 AM »
Dear Staze and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

I did a 5 minute export from WC for all time, and for all the data from my previous weatherstation (LaCrosse 2316), the "precipitation total" number seems to be a climbing total that resets every so often (I can't figure out any pattern). Is there any way to re-normalize the data in WC (so it's all just daily totals) (@WCDev)?

Could you provide us with a few more details of how you did this?  Did you create a tab delimited file?  Could you give us a sample of what the data looks like when you were using your LaCrosse station and what it looks like with the Davis station?  Also, could you take a quick look at the data files themselves?  You'll find them in your Library folder.  Here is the UNIX path:

~/Library/WeatherCatData/Location1/2011

The ~ refers to the path to your home directory.  I picked 2011 as a sample year it is the last directory of the path - change for other years..  If you look in those folders there are text files with the data collected by WeatherCat.  I'm wondering if the data is somehow corrupted.  There are comments at the top of the files to tell you what to look for.  By all means don't edit these files, you just want to view them!  If you want to be extra cautious, you could make copies of the files and look only at the copies.  They will open with TextEdit or your favorite text editor.

Let us know if you spot anything unusual.

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

staze

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Re: Weird rain data from old station (crosspost from Meteotemplate)
« Reply #3 on: February 22, 2019, 12:51:10 AM »
Here's an example of the data: https://pastebin.com/XrK7wWpE

Export was generated just via "All Data" file WC Data export. Did 5 minute intervals.

The data looks "valid" except for the rain data being weird. With some help from some Excel friends, I was able to fix the data I think...
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staze

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Re: Weird rain data from old station (crosspost from Meteotemplate)
« Reply #4 on: February 22, 2019, 02:42:56 AM »
okay, fixed data.

This reminded me of how much my old WS-2316 sucked. I remember bugging stu a lot asking for LWC to have sanity checks for data coming in (occasionally temps would be out of bounds, etc).
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Blicj11

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Re: Weird rain data from old station (crosspost from Meteotemplate)
« Reply #5 on: February 22, 2019, 07:27:49 AM »
I love it when a WeatherCatter sorts out a puzzle. Good work, Staze.
Blick


elagache

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Glad you were able to straighten this out (Re: Weird rain data . . . )
« Reply #6 on: February 22, 2019, 11:12:55 PM »
Dear Staze, Blick, and WeatherCat problem solvers,

okay, fixed data.

This reminded me of how much my old WS-2316 sucked.

I'm glad that you were able to figure out where the problem was coming from and straighten out the mess.  Your experience is a cautionary tale to anyone who bought an inexpensive station to see if they liked tracking the weather and subsequently got hooked.  If WeatherCat is an important part of your daily life, it is probably a good idea to start saving your pennies for a robust station that won't let you down when you really are in need for accurate weather data.

Cheers, Edouard