Page 1 of 1

CumulusMX and Meteotemplate API

Posted: Sun 05 Nov 2017 4:19 am
by blainec
We you be adding the meteotemplate API to MX anytime soon?

Re: CumulusMX and Meteotemplate API

Posted: Sun 05 Nov 2017 8:20 am
by steve
Not any time soon, no, if at all.

Re: CumulusMX and Meteotemplate API

Posted: Sun 05 Nov 2017 8:46 am
by BeaumarisWX
Hi,
This is purely my opinion on the API approach, and by no means a condemnation of it.

1: If one looks at the Meteotemplate proposed standard, being ;
"Meteotemplate API enables sending data to the template. Because Meteotemplate uses its own database, it can calculate all the statistics itslef and so values needed for the API are always just the current conditions. Some of these are saved to the database, others might only be used by some blocks and plugins."
Note: (taken from : http://www.meteotemplate.com/web/wiki/wikiAPI.php) you will see it states that all it needs is "values needed for the API are always just the current conditions", this I find to be a major issue in that there is no way a Daily/Monthly/Yearly (Total/Mean/High/Low/Avg/) can be correctly aligned with your Stations Record Values, primarily based on User Uploaded Timeliness of the previously mentioned "Current Conditions". (have a think about that = 1/5/10/etc minute intervals) and not the by second actual's from and stored by your Station and CumulusMX, it just uses the Current Conditions at Upload Time, so the actual (High/Low/Max/Min) Values and their actual Times are more than likely missed.

2: if you have / as many do, another Template running on your site (say/Cumulus Standard/Saratoga/Leuven/etc) compare your record's (Totals/Min/Max/High/Low/Avg/etc/ and even your NOAA against the plugins/noaaReport/index.php)!.

In addition to that, if you are running CumulusMX and MySql, you already have the Data in a Database, why not use it with Metetemplate !.

Kind regards,

Re: CumulusMX and Meteotemplate API

Posted: Sun 05 Nov 2017 2:42 pm
by PaulMy
I am using Meteotemplate (without API) and everything seems well with my data. I've just compared Now (Current) and Today high and low for temp, humidity, hPa, and wind gust and all the same in my Cumulus template, Saratoga, Leuven, HomeWeather, and Meteotemplate. Thanks to each of their authors to make them available to us to use as we wish.

And, I also have the Cumulus dayfile and realtime data in a MySQL up to date, and my monthly whenever I manually import a new month, so have lots of data to use.

Enjoy,
Paul

Re: CumulusMX and Meteotemplate API

Posted: Sun 05 Nov 2017 5:33 pm
by PaulMy
Hi Tony,
I've had a more detailed look at the data and was shocked on the difference in the Meteotemplate MySQL alldata table max day wind gust compared to what the station recorded. My max wind gust was March 8th 2017 at 85.7 kmh.
This shows in the dayfile.txt and also in the realtime.txt both imported to MySQL dayfile and realtime tables as at 10:03.
In the Meteotemplate MySQL alldata table it shows 45.0 kmh for that day.
Of the 10 days in March 2017 I checked, only one day had the same max gust in Meteotemplate as in Cumulus Dayfile.

Enjoy,
Paul

Re: CumulusMX and Meteotemplate API

Posted: Fri 24 Nov 2017 1:46 pm
by jachym
This is not an issue with other SW, Tony please avoid making conclusions without fully understanding how this works.

Wind gust works fine with the other SW which directly support the API (MB, WD etc.) because they send aggregated values.

Eg:
If user sets update interval to 1 minute, then these programs send avg temp, wind and humidity over the last minute, the maximum gust, maximum rain rate etc. If you set updates to 5 mins, it would send the maximum gust over last 5 mins, average temp etc etc. So it works fine and will be accurate.

However because in case of Cumulus it relies on realtime and FTP, the only way to get the most accurate results is to have the intervals set to extremely short times. But thats nothing I can solve from MT perspective.

Re: CumulusMX and Meteotemplate API

Posted: Fri 24 Nov 2017 2:28 pm
by steve
This is not an issue with other web site templates ;)

Re: CumulusMX and Meteotemplate API

Posted: Fri 24 Nov 2017 3:05 pm
by jachym
Correct, because they use all data from realtime, MT uses its own database and calculates things by itself, which also has many advantages.

I could argue that it is not an issue with other SW, but I dont want to argue with you. Because MT works differently compared to the other templates, it needs different way of updates. Neither approach is better or worse, but the one used by Cumulus currently is not ideal for MT, I never said it is.

Re: CumulusMX and Meteotemplate API

Posted: Fri 24 Nov 2017 4:07 pm
by mcrossley
As an outside observer, it seems that MT could do with using a custom tag file that also contains today's highs/lows so it can accurately record them rather than relying on realtime.txt as has limited data available. That file could be additional and read less frequently, or replace realtime.txt as I do for SS gauges with realtimegauges.txt. Actually realtimegauges.txt probably contains most of what is required.

I know that departs from how MT works and would require special handling for Cumulus... :roll: