CWOP -> MADIS Quality Checks

[Lewis McCallum]

Hi all,

So this isn't exactly a weewx question, but I'm just looking for knowledge from people who understand a bit about uploading to CWOP/MADIS. MADIS support has been super dismissive of my questions (short single-sentence replies to my emails) so I'm just looking for some info. I know there's a lot of pretty knowledgeable people on here who use the services I'm asking about, so I thought I'd ask here.

In particular, I'm interested in the MADIS quality checks that are run. If you upload to CWOP you eventually get a site on gladstonefamily.net where you can track the quality checks of your data and then potentially improve your data quality over time. However, I was disappointed to see my station (UK) wasn't showing full analysis. I don't have an average error/standard deviation for any variable. I then did some exploring and discovered that I could find no UK station which does show this info. All US stations I checked, however, gave full analysis. 

I emailed to ask and got a blunt single sentence response from MADIS saying "US and UK treated the same". I did some exploring of the actual raw MADIS QC data and discovered that for all UK stations I checked (once I'd translated the annoying bitmasks), none of them had had a "Stage 3" check carried out, while all US stations I checked did have this check (where, to my knowledge, stage 3 is the stage which compares station data to the network of other stations and produces the error in your data for each observation). I've pointed this out to MADIS support but believe I am now being ignored for pestering them so much.

Essentially I've come here to ask if anyone has a good understanding of the MADIS quality check system, and can explain to me why only North American stations are getting Stage 3 checks carried out. There must be a valid reason for this, but it's frustrating to just be told by MADIS that "there is no difference" when there clearly is. I was looking forward to improving my data quality and it looks like I just sort of can't because MADIS isn't doing the checks that they seem to be claiming to carry out.

Can anyone shed some light?

Many thanks,

Lewis

[John Kline]

A good place to ask is here:

https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?board=15.0

You may be disappointed when you do get his working as the reports have been wacky for some time (although, very recently, they seem to be better).

You don’t mention your station.  Would you share it?

Cheers,

John

On Nov 5, 2020, at 5:26 PM, Lewis McCallum <lewism...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all,

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[Lewis McCallum]

Hi John,

I'll give that forum a go, thanks for that.

And yeah, I have also seen a lot of people on various forums complaining about the quality of the analysis. It just surprised me that no station in the UK (or anywhere in the world I checked outside of North America actually) seems to have it up and running, so I've been obsessively trying to get to the bottom of it.

My CWOP station is FW8519 - (and meikleobney.net if you're interested :) )

Lewis

[John Kline]

I had a look at:

https://weather.gladstonefamily.net/site/search?site=F8519;Get%20information=Get%20information;days=3#Data

And I see the following.  Is this the issue you are seeing?  How long have you waited?

Not enough data has been received to perform a day / night analysis to check for various types of shielding problems. Please wait a few days, and then try again.

On Nov 5, 2020, at 6:18 PM, Lewis McCallum <lewism...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi John,

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/weewx-user/d4da287b-46cb-4c82-aac8-ca9f845b2192n%40googlegroups.com.

[Lewis McCallum]

Not exactly. If you compare the quality checks on my station (or any in the UK) with one in the US you'll see that my station is actually missing the "stage 3" analysis whereby the analysis variable values (and hence errors) are calculated. Notice my errors and standard deviations are all either zero or blank.

I picked a random US station for example:

https://weather.gladstonefamily.net/site/search?site=E4534;Get%20information=Get%20information;days=3#Data

[John Kline]

Yes, there is no analysis.  If I had to make up a reason, it could be that our NWS doesn’t do this for locations outside the US?  North America?  But I have no idea.  You may get a good answer on this forum, but I would definitely ask on the forum I referred you to.

On Nov 5, 2020, at 6:35 PM, Lewis McCallum <lewism...@gmail.com> wrote:

Not exactly. If you compare the quality checks on my station (or any in the UK) with one in the US you'll see that my station is actually missing the "stage 3" analysis whereby the analysis variable values (and hence errors) are calculated. Notice my errors and standard deviations are all either zero or blank.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/weewx-user/87d1f402-f0d0-4096-9b99-58b1680b13een%40googlegroups.com.

[Lewis McCallum]

Yeah, this was my thinking too, but MADIS support assured me (albeit in a very curt email) that this is not the case. To be honest, I can't say I believe what they've told me.

Fingers crossed someone on this forum will know whats going on!