weewx rejects my high altitude station :-D

[MrPete]

Hi all,

Experienced tech (HW, SW, FW and more), brand new to WeeWX. Have had my WeatherFlow Tempest running for a couple of months.

On initial setup, I just discovered that weewx thinks my barometric pressure is out of range! I thought that was interesting.

I consider this a bug: 

• The adjusted sea level barometer is just fine, and within expected range
• But my actual pressure is considered too low.
• Not a surprise: we live in Colorado near the mountains at a bit over 7000 ft -- so our raw pressure is about 3/4 of sea level. People not far from me live over 10000 ft ! And there's a weather station on top of a nearby mountain at over 14000 ft.
• The current accepted default pressure is 24 inHG. That's 2 in below the typical minimum seen in the middle of a tornado.
• I suggest either dynamically calculating what's acceptable based on altitude, or changing this to allow up to 15,000 ft stations. I doubt we would see tornados at 15000 ft, but we DO see some at 7000 ft. 
• All things considered, I would suggest a minimum of 17 for 7000 ft, 14 for 15000 ft.

[Jeff A. D.]

I think the problem may be the [StdQC] section in the weewx.conf.  http://weewx.com/docs/usersguide.htm#StdQC

In the example given the minimum barometer reading is 28 which I'm guessing may be causing your problem.  I simply changed mine to 15 which may be absurdly low but I've never noted a problem with anomalous. readings.  I'm around 7030 feet myself.

In case you're not sure where the config file is located:  http://weewx.com/docs/usersguide.htm#Where_to_find_things

[Jeff A. D.]

Actually it may just be "pressure" you need to change, but I ended up changing both for some reason, and as I say I've never had a problem.

[gjr80]

It's not a bug but a set of defaults provided under [StdQC] in weewx.conf for the user to tailor to their needs. Once you set them to suit your needs they will remain that way across WeeWX upgrades etc until you change them.

Gary

[Greg Troxel]

gjr80 <gjrod...@gmail.com> writes:

> It's not a bug but a set of defaults provided under [StdQC] in weewx.conf
> for the user to tailor to their needs. Once you set them to suit your needs
> they will remain that way across WeeWX upgrades etc until you change them.

Sure but I think the point is valid that if sea level pressure is
reasonable, then it makes sense to not object to station pressures at
altitude.

Given config of altitude, it strikes me as best to have a default for
sea level pressure max/min and then compute the corresponding station
pressures and use those.

(No patch of course, and I'm near enough sea level not to need it.)

[MrPete]

OK, if not a bug, then let's define the default for users who live above 5,000 ft. :)

I think it's far more reasonable to set defaults so that under ANY normal conditions, users will not see an error. YES, let them tune the default to a narrower range if they want.