Weewx and Weather Underground

[Alastair L]

My Davis Vantage Pro2 has been running in Weewx faultlessly for over two years now and so my problem is unlikely to be Weewx related, however,  I can’t think of a better place to ask for potential solutions to my problem.   My detailed knowledge of ‘things internet’ is pretty limited.

Weewx sends data every 5 minutes to Weather Underground.  Over the last several months my station does not appear consistently on my WU dashboard map or on the Wundermap.  It’s been getting worse for months and I don’t understand what the issue could be.   Sometimes the station appears, mostly now it doesn’t.  

I can see from my Weewx log that data is being posted every 5 minutes, and from the WU dashboard data table that data is being received by WU. The WU dashboard shows eg “Online(updated 1 minute ago)” and the data table on my WU dashboard is being populated.  I read that WU checks your station data for consistency with local stations and stops showing your data if it’s inaccurate, however many random checks between my readings and two local stations on WU show no significant differences.   The data timestamp for the last data entry on my WU data table is always 5 to 20 minutes older than the current time.   The two local stations do appear consistently on the Wundermap and the timestamp on their dashboards are within 5 minutes of the current time leading me to think the problem could possibly be internet related.

The internet here is not great by current standards, with a max upload of 1 mbps (it’s a rural location, no fibre), but the 2 other local stations (which do not appear to run Weewx) will have the same internet limitations.  My ping to Google is consistently between 50 and 90 ms if that’s relevant.  I’ve had the internet provider check out my connection a couple of times.  I had a new router and they did some other tweaks, but they say there are no issues.  I experimented with posting data every one minute to WU but that had no effect.  I have also contacted WU a couple of times but didn’t get any responses.  So I’m out of ideas.  

Any thoughts to get my station to appear on the WU map would be greatly appreciated.

[Tom Keffer]

The WU can be pretty bad, but this sounds worse than normal. What is your station ID?

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[Karen K]

Alastair L schrieb am Donnerstag, 4. August 2022 um 21:48:32 UTC+2:

differences.   The data timestamp for the last data entry on my WU data table is always 5 to 20 minutes older than the current time.   The two local stations do appear 

What is the time of the computer running WeeWX? Is it correct?

What is the time of the Vantage Pro? Is it correct?

I had some issues with the Vantage Pro 2, if the time of the console is more than one minute away from the real time. I do not understand why the console is important there, but setting the time of the console solved those issues.

[Doug Bo]

WU has been quite odd with one of my stations lately.  Slow updates, I lost my data quality sticker which happens every once in a while.  We've had some extreme heat events so I assume once the weather returns to "normal" that will help.  I also have slow upload speeds which I'm guessing impacts WU.  I was just watching WU and although WU is receiving my realtime updates, they didn't update the data table for 15 minutes.

I think it is a WU problem for certain stations.

Doug B.

[Roger Lee]

I have had better luck running fast updates. I would have to try to remember what option does that. I'm sure Tom knows that.

[vince]

Some quick research yesterday popped up some threads elsewhere saying their  QC algorithms sometimes drop sites from the map if they aren't uploading reliably, which might be the original poster's underlying issue (perhaps).

It could also be something as minor as clock skew.  I'd suggest the original poster check their system clock for drift.  Run ntp if you're not already doing so.  The systemd timesync stuff is not as good in my experience.

[Roger Lee]

Fast updates = "Rapid Fire"

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[Doug Bo]

Good point about the system clock.  Mine is spot on which leads me to believe when weather is extreme the QC algorithm does not like my data.  My data matches my neighbors so I'm not sure what WU dislikes about my data.  Be nice if WU would tell me what they don't like about my data.

One observation that I've made is this: my neighbor had his wind direction 180 degrees off for weeks after a fresh install and WU continued to accept his data as valid & give preference to his station on the map.  I just had to laugh.

Doug B.

[Alastair]

Hi

Many thanks for all your responses and suggestions.  As a result I believe I can report success, my station now appears reliably in the WU maps.

I checked out the time on both my Pi and the Vantage console against my PC time and all were within seconds of each other.  So I tried I editing the rapidfire setting in the config file as suggested and changed it from false to true.  For the first time in ages my station (ILAIRG10) appeared on WU maps and  continues to appear - great!   I've waited some hours to confirm this is not just a fluke, and so far the station appears every time I have I've checked.  This hasn't been possible in months. I have wasted a lot of time fretting over this problem and it's great to have a solution.

I can see from the weewx log that weewx now sends data to WU every 2 seconds now instead of  every 5 minutes previously and that the WU data table still updates every 5 minutes.  Curiously the time stamp on my WU data  table changed as soon as the rapid fire option was made, from e.g.  2:00PM, 2:05 PM, 2:10 PM etc to  e.g 2:34 PM, 2:39 PM, 2:44 PM etc.  These post rapidfire change time stamps now precisely align with the other two local stations (that I believe not running on Weewx), but what the significance is escapes me.  The comment made regarding WU dropping sites from the map if they aren't uploading reliably looks to have been true for me, but why, to my likely simplistic understanding, firing data at WU 150 times in 5 minutes, instead of a nice sedate once, improves reliability surprises me.  I'm not really clear what the logic behind this is but it works for me.  Perhaps someone can suggest an explanation?

Anyway, I'm happy now and thanks once again to you all for your input. 

Alastair

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[Tom Hogland]

I might have a hint about this. For quite some time, my VP2 (KAKWASIL2) was one of very few PWS in my area. I had the same issues you described, where it would disappear from the map but when viewed directly it would be uploading. I went through all the troubleshooting steps with WU, and we essentially came down to the sanity checks - if your weather is too far off the "normal" reports then it's considered "bad" and not displayed until "corrected". Thing is, my station is close to town, while the "official" airport weather is several miles away and across a small set of hills, so can be quite different. With no other reports to compare to, mine was considered "off".

As more stations came online, and more data was available, mine became "more reliable" since more stations showed similar data. RapidFire adds more data into the mix, so if your data is consistent and within certain limits, then it's considered "more reliable". Also, if there's other PWS in the area and all show similar data it helps. Mine would drop for a day or two, then suddenly you'd query for zip 99654 and it would show as the official town weather again :-)

WU algorithms are known to be a bit flaky with sanity checks, but have gotten much better over the years as more data has come online. Still, if you're in an area with somewhat different temp/wind patterns, it can cause WU's AI some headaches.

[Doug Bo]

Another data point, my station is missing some location info and barometric pressure on the Android app.  I have verified my upload data on the WU station web page and everything looks good.  One thing WU "lost" is my hardware type.  I have reset the station hardware info so we'll see what happens.  I have also opened a ticket with them on this issue. 

FWIW, a few years back WU moved some PWS stations to a new server and messed up my station.  I wonder if they have performed some data house cleaning and mucked up a few things?

I'll update the thread when I have additional info.

Thanks all for the input.

Doug B.

[Tom Stewart]

Curious that enabling rapid-fire improved reliability for you. I was having reliability issues posting to WU and was told that having it enabled led to problems. So I disabled, and things have been consistently good for me over the past month (i.e. since that change).

[Doug Bo]

My guess on Rapid Fire is that if your neighbors are doing it then the WU app "downgrades" your station.  Back 10-15 years ago, I uploaded at 5 min intervals & had no neighbors uploading to WU.  As more neighbors started uploading and switching to Rapid Fire I was sort of left behind.  My data showed up on the web but the app viewed my station as a 3rd class citizen.  Much has changed at WU over the years with the web and app so just my observations.  YMMV  :)

Play with the config until you get the desired results.  LOL

Doug B.