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[SUBYDAZZ]

Questions about rainfall and temperature logging on WOW.

My WOW site showed I had 1.02mm of rain yesterday but my station is only capable of logging multiples of 0.3mm, so It should have shown 0.9mm. What's happened there? I also noticed that it logged 0.3mm and the WOW site shows 0.25mm. Similarly odd with the rain ratesshow a values of other 0.01mm or 0.02mm when the rain rate minimum of my station is 3.6mm/hr.

Additionally I have no Min or Max air temps being uploaded to the WOW site.

I am providing 10 minute updates.

http://wow.metoffice.gov.uk/tabulardat ... nfall_rate

[SUBYDAZZ]

Also for the site preferences it asks whether the wind is captured in knots or metres per second, but mine is in km/h. Which should I use?

Similarly, it asks only if rainfall accumulation is captured but not what units?

[steve]

My WOW site showed I had 1.02mm of rain yesterday but my station is only capable of logging multiples of 0.3mm, so It should have shown 0.9mm. What's happened there? I also noticed that it logged 0.3mm and the WOW site shows 0.25mm. Similarly odd with the rain ratesshow a values of other 0.01mm or 0.02mm when the rain rate minimum of my station is 3.6mm/hr.

Rain figures are uploaded to WOW in inches, and it converts, hence the rounding differences.

Additionally I have no Min or Max air temps being uploaded to the WOW site.

They don't get uploaded, WOW works them out.The max and min air temperatures are being displayed, but the 'last 24 hours' always seem to be blank.

[Adrian Shand]

All,

This is a quick note to let you all know that the pressure not displaying correctly problem is due to be fixed in a software release today (Friday 8th July 2011) around midday.

If you run an automatic weather station that reports 'Station Pressure'/'Air Pressure' to WOW, you will need to check your site configuration to ensure that:

•'Pressure (At Station)' is set to either 'Hectopascal' or 'Millibar'
•'Mean Sea Level Pressure' is set to 'Not Captured'

If you are sending MSLP then ensure that you have the configuration of your site set the other way round!

Apologies that I haven't been able to join in the forum as much as I would have liked, so if you have any feedback you would like to guarantee the Project Team seeing then please either use the "Beta feedback" link on the website, or drop us a line at "wow@metoffice.gov.uk". I note that some of you state that you haven't had a reply or an acknowledgement, hopefully you should have done by now, but if not I apologise for that too, but be assured that I have seen it and logged it. The communication channels have now been put in place to ensure a timely response in future should one be required.

Thanks, as always, for your help and support.

Regards,
Adrian Shand.

WOW Project Manager.

[RayProudfoot]

Hi Adrian,

Thanks for the notification. I've made the changes and checked my station against that at Woodford and our pressure is the same.

I also received several acknowldgements for suggestions / bugs so thanks too for that.

So when's v1.7 going to be released?

[mcrossley]

Ray

You have your station set to "pressure at station", you need to change it to MSL pressure and set your station altitude.

[RayProudfoot]

Ray

You have your station set to "pressure at station", you need to change it to MSL pressure and set your station altitude.

Thanks Mark. How does it look now?

[mcrossley]

That's better, you had a blip but its back to normal now

[RayProudfoot]

That's better, you had a blip but its back to normal now

At my age a blip could be serious! Thanks for your help.

[sjmcinness]

Also for the site preferences it asks whether the wind is captured in knots or metres per second, but mine is in km/h. Which should I use?

Sorry to dig up an old thread here but I noticed that this question hasn't been answered and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology just publicly announced a partnership with the UK Met Office, so there might be a few more people from Australia signing up for this.

Also, Steve could please advise which values Cumulus uploads (assuming requisite sensors are installed), so that we can fill out the Site Data Preferences section accurately? These are the options currently available:

• Above Ground Temperature
  • Air Temperature N/C|C|F
  • Wet Bulb N/C|C|F
  • Max. Temp. (last 24hr) N/C|C|F
  • Min. Temp. (last 24hr) N/C|C|F
  • Grass Temp. N/C|C|F
  • Concrete Temp. N/C|C|F
• Soil
  • Soil Moisture N/C|Cap
  • Soil Temp. (at 10cm) N/C|C|F
  • Soil Temp. (at 30cm) N/C|C|F
  • Soil Temp. (at 100cm) N/C|C|F
• Wind Measurements
  • Wind Speed N/C|K|MPH|M/s
  • Wind Direction N/C|Cap
  • Wind Gust N/C|K|MPH|M/s
  • Wind Gust Direction N/C|Cap
• Weather Codes
  • Present Weather N/C|Cap
  • Visibility N/C|Cap
  • Ground State N/C|Cap
  • Total Cloud Cover N/C|Cap
• Pressure
  • Pressure (At Station) N/C|HPa|mb
  • Mean Sea-Level Pressure N/C|HPa|mb
• Misc.
  • Relative Humidity N/C|Cap
  • Dew Point N/C|C|F
  • Rainfall Accumulation N/C|Cap
  • Snow Depth N/C|cm|in
  • Sunshine N/C|Cap
  • Rainfall Rate N/C|Cap
• Day of ...
  • Day of Snow N/C|Cap
  • Day of Hail N/C|Cap
  • Day of Thunder N/C|Cap
  • Day of Gales N/C|Cap

[steve]

The upload protocol is defined here: http://wow.metoffice.gov.uk/support/dat ... #automatic. It's a slightly modified version of the Weather Underground protocol.

Cumulus sends all but the last three (soiltempf, soilmoisture, and visibility). They've added soiltempf and soilmoisture since the original spec, and I can add those in a future release, for those who have those sensors. Cumulus also sends solar radiation and UV, but they appear not to use those now.

For barometer, it sends MSLP.

[sjmcinness]

Thanks Steve; sorry I did look at that but didn't put two and two together... So it seems they offer a lot more fields for manual input than they do via their API. The Site Details setup also seems insistent on having concrete and grass temperatures enabled, because it I set them to Not Captured and save settings they just appear back as Celsius when the page reloads.

Now, for the $1,000,000 question, what unit should I choose for wind speed if my VP2+ and Cumulus are configured to report wind speed in km/h? I think it's reporting the correct speed when I select MPH but as it updates so frequently on the console and in Cumulus, and the wind speed hasn't been very constant, it's almost impossible to know for sure.

[tumutbound]

Thanks for the info about WOW in Australia, didn't know this existed.
I've signed up but have managed to make multiple sites (a new site every time I tweaked lat/long ). Time to read the FAQ!

[steve]

Now, for the $1,000,000 question, what unit should I choose for wind speed if my VP2+ and Cumulus are configured to report wind speed in km/h?

I don't actually use the WOW site (other than having Cumulus upload to it for testing purposes) so I don't have any understanding of it beyond the upload protocol. But it seems to me that you would just choose the units that you want to be displayed? Perhaps someone else will be able to offer advice.

[sjmcinness]

Thanks again Steve.

But it seems to me that you would just choose the units that you want to be displayed?

Ok so, by this (and re-reading the API spec), I presume it means that the API accepts only MPH for wind speed, and whatever unit specified other data, meaning that whatever is displayed on the console or in Cumulus is irrelevant because Cumulus must supply wind speed in MPH - is that correct? If so, then I misunderstood it as having to choose the unit for which the data we are submitting uses.

For those others that are interested, the information for people in Australia is available on the BoM website, which ultimately lands on a BoM-branded version of the Met Office's WOW site, and for UK residents on the Met Office's website itself.