Weatherlink NOAA reports and Weathercat Report Differ

[denalibelay]

Hello, I am new to the forum.  Hope I get this right.  I have moved to Weathercat but am still downloading all the data to Weatherlink and Weathercat.  I have noticed the NOAA monthly reports differ, especially the wind direction and rain.  Anything I can do to change this?

[elagache]

Dear denalibelay and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

Hello, I am new to the forum. 

Well, by all means welcome!

Hope I get this right.  I have moved to Weathercat but am still downloading all the data to Weatherlink and Weathercat.  I have noticed the NOAA monthly reports differ, especially the wind direction and rain.  Anything I can do to change this?

Is there any chance you could give us two reports for the same period that show these differences?  That would help with the troubleshooting.

By the way, how long have you been using WeatherCat and how do you have your data-logger configured?  I'm curious to know how much data WeatherCat is using to generate the reports that are in error.

Thanks for helping us get a handle on this problem.

Cheers, Edouard

[denalibelay]

I started using Weathercat in January.  So I have January and February Reports.  However a family member (computer expert) has pulled my data across using a server.  He is busy trying to fix those problems.  What does concern me is the difference in the reports from data that is new and not old data being pulled across.  I am attaching the Jan and Feb reports for both weatherlink and weathercat. 
Of interest when I check the data file in weathercat the rain readings are correct, but the NOAA reports are incorrect (for rain).  I have not checked the wind differences yet.

The rain readings for weatherlink correspond to the readings on my console so I know for sure those are correct as it is summer here right now and we don't have much rain, although we wish we did.   

[elagache]

Dear denalibelay and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

I am attaching the Jan and Feb reports for both weatherlink and weathercat. 

Alas, you posted February's report twice.  When you have a chance could you post the WeatherCat NOAA report for January?

Of interest when I check the data file in weathercat the rain readings are correct, but the NOAA reports are incorrect (for rain).  I have not checked the wind differences yet.

Could you double-check the wind data as well?  However, you are getting the correct data when you query WeatherCat for rainfall on those specific days?  If the data is all correct, then it has to be a bug in the WeatherCat NOAA report generator.  It is relatively new addition to the program, so a lurking bug is more possible there than for the other more mature features of WeatherCat.

The rain readings for weatherlink correspond to the readings on my console so I know for sure those are correct as it is summer here right now and we don't have much rain, although we wish we did.   

Sounds like you are a frequent victim of drought as well.  Not that it will be any comfort whatsoever, but right now it feels like summer in northern California and obviously it isn't summer.  I sure hope the rains return and soon! 

Let us know what you uncover.

Cheers, Edouard 

[denalibelay]

Oops. I'm so sorry.  Here is the missing January report. 

The wind seems to be correct in the weathercat data viewer/editor.  It is not when we import the old data so we are working on that.  When I run the statistics report once again it shows a higher rain value.  My davis console measures 1.6 for february as does the weatherlink software.  It is almost as if there is a setting somewhere that is incorrect.  I am using the .2mm rain collector. 

[WCDev]

Hello denalibelay, welcome to the forum!

A few questions to get to the bottom of your problem.
In your NOAA report from WeatherCat, it lists 3.6mm of rain on Feb 14th. If you enter 14th Feb into the WeatherCat Controller window, what daily rain does it report there?

Secondly, if I understand correctly, you normally have WeatherCat shutdown overnight, but running live with the station during the day?

[denalibelay]

Yes I do switch my computer off at night when I go to bed.  I am running the station at night.  My energy saving on the computer is set to turn the display off at 10 minutes, put hard disks to sleep when possible, wake for network access.  If my computer is unattended during the day I notice sometimes there is break in communications between the console and computer. 

The weather cat controller for 14th Feb also says 3.6mm. 

I am attaching the data viewer/editor information which looks as if the rain for the day is what the console read on that day.

[WCDev]

Thank you. So that's consistent with your NOAA report.

WeatherCat calculates rain over a period by adding up the differences between samples. You daily rain should be slowly increasing throughout the day as it rains. If it drops, then comes back up, this will effectively double your rain - for example, if the rain is:
0mm, 2.0mm, 2.0mm, 2.0mm, 0mm, 2.0mm
across that period WeatherCat will see 4mm's.

In your data (Precipitation Total) there are drops to 0 around 15:32 to 19:17 - these drops to 0 are going to double the rain recorded, so to fix the rain you need to edit these 0's up to the previous value. You can do this either in the editor within WeatherCat (look at the Raw Rain column) or by opening the data file in a text editor and editing them there (quit WeatherCat first) and if using the editor, reboot it after editing the rain up to correct the rain totals.

The question now is why is the rain dropping? Was WeatherCat running live with the station when these 0's were recorded or was this data downloaded from your logger?

[denalibelay]

The question now is why is the rain dropping? Was WeatherCat running live with the station when these 0's were recorded or was this data downloaded from your logger?

Today we had rain and the controller read 4.2mm, but the report said over 15mm.  I checked the data viewer/editor and as mentioned I noticed that the downloads had dropped to 0 which now I know increased the rain amounts.  I seems to me that this happens everytime the computer goes to sleep and is unattended.  How do I prevent this from happening?  I am often away from the computer at long periods of time and am loath to leave the computer not in sleep mode?  Should I be quitting weathercat everytime I walk away from the computer?

[elagache]

Dear denalibelay and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

Today we had rain and the controller read 4.2mm, but the report said over 15mm.  I checked the data viewer/editor and as mentioned I noticed that the downloads had dropped to 0 which now I know increased the rain amounts.  I seems to me that this happens everytime the computer goes to sleep and is unattended.  How do I prevent this from happening?  I am often away from the computer at long periods of time and am loath to leave the computer not in sleep mode?  Should I be quitting weathercat everytime I walk away from the computer?

Allowing your computer to go to sleep will prevent WeatherCat from running and during that time the data is lost.  It is a problem that has come up periodically.  For example, here is a somewhat recent thread on the subject:

http://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=930.0

What is your concern about having your computer going to sleep?  As noted in that thread, if your concern is energy use, you could just put your display to sleep instead of the whole computer.  The vast majority of energy use is from the display.

If energy use is of an extreme concern to you, consider quitting WeatherCat and then allowing the computer to go to sleep if you are going to be away for an extended period of time.

A good many of us prefer to keep our Macs running 24/7 (with all other prudent energy saver options enabled) so that we can continuously upload data to the various services that accept weather data.  That is something you might consider if that would be of interest.

Cheers, Edouard