Weather Flow Smart station

[Dorsetbred]

5 hours ago, Chris.R said:

You mean the sky unit?

Doh, yes. And further work generated 40mm of rainfall. So I'm trying to clear things away now so eventually once I'm happy to go live with the unit I have no plans to generate extraneous vibrations! Although I am wondering what the birds dropping on to the pergola might generate, which might mean a totally separate pole for the SKY unit (a bit of a pain)!

[Dorsetbred]

Worth noting that the barometric pressure shown on the app is Sea Level Pressure and NOT local station pressure. Worth bearing in mind when checking the app and you are 400ft above sea level!

[Mapantz]

1 hour ago, Dorsetbred said:

Worth noting that the barometric pressure shown on the app is Sea Level Pressure and NOT local station pressure. Worth bearing in mind when checking the app and you are 400ft above sea level!

I'm a bit confused by that?! My app is showing the same pressure as the web data, has done from day one, when I calibrated it to my Davis station's pressure - relative pressure.

[Chris.R]

3 hours ago, Dorsetbred said:

Worth noting that the barometric pressure shown on the app is Sea Level Pressure and NOT local station pressure. Worth bearing in mind when checking the app and you are 400ft above sea level!

 Do you have to enter your asl manually into the app or does it get it from GPS? 

[Dorsetbred]

9 hours ago, Chris.R said:

 Do you have to enter your asl manually into the app or does it get it from GPS? 

It gets it from gps I believe.

[Dorsetbred]

11 hours ago, Mapantz said:

I'm a bit confused by that?! My app is showing the same pressure as the web data, has done from day one, when I calibrated it to my Davis station's pressure - relative pressure.

Mapantz, point noted that it is relative pressure and I understand that is the pressure people show. Given that's the case then my unit is faulty as it reads 3mb higher than yours on relative pressure).

Check out your pressure ready below:

And mine which is the higher figure image:

And then that of EGHH (Hurn)

Mine is showing a figure of almost 3mb higher than yours & EGHH

I've now manually adjusted the offset on mine in my TP app to read the same as yours so I'll see how it runs over the next week.

Edited September 8, 2018 by Dorsetbred

[Chris.R]

Sea level pressure is the one you should be quoting in station readings. The station pressure is the actual  pressure measured that changes with your altitude.  I remember I had this problem when I first set up my netatmo station. I had to manually enter my altitude as it was not calculating the correct offset for My sea level pressure.  I think I had to tell it I was below sea level in the end. 

Edited September 8, 2018 by Chris.R

[Dorsetbred]

1 hour ago, Chris.R said:

Sea level pressure is the one you should be quoting in station readings. The station pressure is the actual  pressure measured that changes with your altitude.  I remember I had this problem when I first set up my netatmo station. I had to manually enter my altitude as it was not calculating the correct offset for My sea level pressure.  I think I had to tell it I was below sea level in the end. 

Chris (& Mapantz) thanks for the feedback. I've adjusted my height above sea level from the true 136ft down to 35ft and now the reading is as others in the area reading relative pressure. So now I'll see how it tracks over the next week or so. Thanks for the input. both..

[Mapantz]

42 minutes ago, Dorsetbred said:

Chris (& Mapantz) thanks for the feedback. I've adjusted my height above sea level from the true 136ft down to 35ft and now the reading is as others in the area reading relative pressure. So now I'll see how it tracks over the next week or so. Thanks for the input. both..

I had to do the same and I don't like it to be honest. Station pressure is relative pressure, that is the one that should be adjusted for our elevation. I have had to set mine to minus 38 feet to get the pressure on the card, closest to my Davis station. However, it turns out that it is adjusting the SLP, not station pressure, which is backwards. We shouldn't be needing to alter our elevations to sync our stations pressure. The elevation should stay the same, and we should be adjusting the station pressure, and that should be the one showing on the mobile/wab app.

[Mapantz]

I've finally got the Sky unit in situ now. The Netatmo anemometer was completely battered. I thought about selling it until I saw how badly it had degraded.

[Chris.R]

2 hours ago, Mapantz said:

I've finally got the Sky unit in situ now. The Netatmo anemometer was completely battered. I thought about selling it until I saw how badly it had degraded.

I’m in the same position as you with the  Netatmo. When I get the weatherflow I will be mounting the sky on the same pole I have the netatmo anemometer on now. I’m interested to see the difference in readings. To be honest the Netatmo wind data hasn’t been anywhere near for months now. Don’t know why I don’t just take it down!

[Dorsetbred]

14 hours ago, Mapantz said:

I've finally got the Sky unit in situ now. The Netatmo anemometer was completely battered. I thought about selling it until I saw how badly it had degraded.

Mapantz what are you using for bird spikes as I might have to consider something, because my unit is seeming to register something on the rainfall but there's no rain. Of course it could well be vibration, but it could be birds, too. Here's this mornings graph to show what I mean..

 

[Mapantz]

31 minutes ago, Dorsetbred said:

Mapantz what are you using for bird spikes as I might have to consider something, because my unit is seeming to register something on the rainfall but there's no rain. Of course it could well be vibration, but it could be birds, too. Here's this mornings graph to show what I mean..

Hi Db. I had a spare packet of Davis bird spikes lying around. They are stainless and rigid, makes them ideal.

You can get them here: https://www.weatherspares.co.uk/davis-debris-screen-and-bird-spikes-7345530-205-p.asp

[Dorsetbred]

10 minutes ago, Mapantz said:

Hi Db. I had a spare packet of Davis bird spikes lying around. They are stainless and rigid, makes them ideal.

You can get them here: https://www.weatherspares.co.uk/davis-debris-screen-and-bird-spikes-7345530-205-p.asp

Thanks Mapantz will buy me a set of those as we get an annual influx of starlings in the neighbours tree, and they stand on everything that is above ground level!

[Mapantz]

A quick update on temperatures. The WF station matches the Davis blow for blow. The Davis station updates very quickly, compared to the WF, so sometimes they won't always match at a given time, but they are never more than 0.2° from eachother. However, maximum temperatures recorded have been identical. The WF station will record a minimum temp maybe 0.2°C lower than the Davis, but the Davis is situated about 18" higher.

That said and done, the WF sensor is as good as the Davis one (when shielded) I also believe that it is using the same sensor as the Davis station - I read it on theWF forum somewhere.

[Mapantz]

I decided to make a second PWS on my wunderground account, specifically for my weatherflow station. I am also using a new template which reads the weatherflow data, and also generates graphs from the weather underground site:

https://warehamwx.co.uk/wf/

It only updates every 1 minute, as that's what the weatherflow API allows currently. Still, it's far better than the 5 - 10 minute updates that Netatmo offered.

[Mapantz]

Wind has got up here, gusting to 20+ mph. The WF Sky unit is working extremely well. It does sway a little due to my set up, but it isn't registering any rain from it, so that's good.

Edited September 10, 2018 by Mapantz

[Mapantz]

A new calibration system for Sky will be deployed soon, which will improve rain reports. Once this is in place and more information is gathered, they will start looking at showing hail reports.

[Chris.R]

1 hour ago, Mapantz said:

A new calibration system for Sky will be deployed soon, which will improve rain reports. Once this is in place and more information is gathered, they will start looking at showing hail reports.

 Nice one. I posted about how good it would be to have snow detection/ precip type differentiation  the other day. It would be great to see that implemented at some point. 

Edited September 12, 2018 by Chris.R

[Chris.R]

 Just noticed that the NHC have referenced a Weatherflow private station in their forecast discussion of hurricane Florence. Cool Hey.

[Mapantz]

A few problems arising with my Air unit. I think I may need a replacement.

[Mapantz]

Crisis averted. My station responded oddly to CL analysis and caused a glitch, which sent my humidity readings right out of kilter. They are digging in to the data to see what happened. Meanwhile, they put it back to how it was before. At least it's just a software calibration problem and not a hardware one.

[Dorsetbred]

Not too sure about mine either at the moment. All day it’s been saying the wind is from the N or NW, and it hasn’t been it’s been mainly from the SW. Not sure what’s going on with it.

[Mapantz]

My WF station is working nicely with the strong winds. It's unlikely to match the Davis as it's not situated as high and there's some obstruction. However, it blows the Netatmo anemometer out of the water.

35mph on the Davis at 10m
31.1mph on the WF at 6m

It does sway a fair bit in the strong gusts due to how my garden is and where the pole is also. I'm not getting any false positives from the haptic rain sensor either, which is great.

[Dorsetbred]

33 minutes ago, Mapantz said:

My WF station is working nicely with the strong winds. It's unlikely to match the Davis as it's not situated as high and there's some obstruction. However, it blows the Netatmo anemometer out of the water.

35mph on the Davis at 10m
31.1mph on the WF at 6m

It does sway a fair bit in the strong gusts due to how my garden is and where the pole is also. I'm not getting any false positives from the haptic rain sensor either, which is great.

That's good, after moving my SKY unit and bolting the pole (multi-section aluminium pole) together then fixed to a concrete fence support, I saw a rain measure this morning aligned to a gust. It still seems aluminium poles permit too much movement for the rain sensor. Damn, seems like a new pole is the only way forward.

Edited September 19, 2018 by Dorsetbred