New Zealand Local Weather Forum
Weather Discussion => Hardware Software and Technology => Weather Stations => Topic started by: MetService on December 10, 2014, 06:02:47 PM
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Hi everyone - by now you might have seen the new Your Weather tab on our Towns & Cities pages (after our 'soft launch' yesterday, we'll have a media release out on Friday). MetService has collaborated with the UK Met Office to source weather station data from the WOW (Weather Observations Website) System.
While the UK and Australia currently have separate Weather Observations Websites, MetService has chosen to integrate New Zealand-based weather station observations from the WOW System directly into metservice.com and display them alongside our own to give you a single view of weather-as-it-happens in your local area – ‘Your Weather’. This approach enables us to add other useful information, such as weather cams and traffic cams, in the same single view.
We're really keen to encourage weather enthusiasts like yourselves to take part in Your Weather by adding your stations to WOW if you haven't already: http://about.metservice.com/our-company/your-weather/add-your-own-weather-station/ (http://about.metservice.com/our-company/your-weather/add-your-own-weather-station/)
We've also encouraged people to come to this forum for helpful advice on setting up their own weather stations: http://about.metservice.com/our-company/your-weather/compatible-weather-stations-and-software/ (http://about.metservice.com/our-company/your-weather/compatible-weather-stations-and-software/)
I look forward to seeing your stations pop up on Your Weather, and will keep you posted on future new developments.
Cheers!
Jacqui Bridges
GM Communications
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Nice work Metservice. Thanks for getting involved with WOW, setting up and letting us know about this service!
I've just set myself up (maungaraki) but probably need to check my settings as some of the readings are a bit odd.
It's an easy process in weather display. Just go into the control panel and click on the WOW icon, then follow the instructions. You will need to create an account/site on the UK Met Office site.
It would be good for members who set themselves up to let us know below, and if you have any issues post below to see if we can help out
Thanks again Jacqui. Great initiative. Thanks also for the link to the forum on the Metservice site.
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And a couple of things I spotted.
You can only select mph, knots and m per sec on the WOW website. Km/ h is not an option, but scheduled for the next upgrade. If you currently log in km/h you probably don't want to change that in a hurry because it will mess up your history data. There is an option on the site to not report the wind speed, so you should select that In the meantime.
Secondly I noticed on the MetService site the title across the box for my weather data says "Local Weather Station". Presumably this is MetService updated once the site is validated
Everything else looks good tho. Thanks again!
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Ok I am lost.
So where will our weather stations be on the Metservice New Zealand web site please?
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Jenny, just go to the towns/cities forecast page for the town closest to you, and click the Your Weather tab. Yours would show up here Napier Weather - NZ Weather Forecast Napier from MetService.com (http://www.metservice.com/towns-cities/napier#!/your-weather)
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Thank you David.
However it is incorrect. It does not match the rainfall I am uploading to WOW UK.
WOW UK is correct 11.4mm
Metservice 0.2mm
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The metservice reading is total for the last hour only.
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There's quite a few sites popping up now.
Saw that one station (Kaipara Weather) is reporting a somewhat unrealistic barometric pressure of 1032 hPa when everyone else is reporting 1010 hPa....
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Mmmmm, and now lots of the sites have just disappeared... interesting.
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My barometer reading was 1044mb last night when I set it up, but after a few hours it came back down to the right numbers. Not sure what it is, but could be a short term problem on set up
Looks like the ones that are added will always have a header of "local weather station" The ones with names are the "official MetService ones.
Also noticed some sites are showing km/h on the MetService site. So there may be a fix for that as well. Anyone?
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WOW UK certainly needs to add in km and hPa.
I am surprised this was not done years ago.
From what I am guessing going over the Map. The local NZ Metservice stations ( mainly Airports) have the km and hPa. Hence reading their own here in NZ.
Whereas those rego's with WOW will have the UK UOM.
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Don't know what was happening last night, but there was maybe ½ hour when most sites (except MetService ones) disappeared from the map. Guess they were editing or something. The map looks to have plenty of coverage, quite impressive.
It appears there's a certain amount of time it takes for MetService to name your site - when first set up, your site displays the tag "local weather station" until they give it the name in your site details on WOW. Initially I had wondered how on earth David's was showing as "Howick" and mine wasn't saying Waitakere - I was searching all the settings in WOW for a while to see what I had missed.
MetService stations are identified with their logo in the title bar.
hPa is a measurement unit available in set - I chose that, but it would be nice to see metric units. However, it is primarily set up for the UK and they still work in miles over there - but it seems whatever the unit of measurement you choose there, MetService NZ picks it up and displays it as km/h on "Your Weather"...
This morning I noted also that Kaipara Weather was down to sensible baro readings.
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Without any interference from me, Wairoa is now reading correct so I guess the Metservice themselves are fixing the UOM and Station name in the tittle.
hPa is a measurement unit available in set - I chose that, but it would be nice to see metric units.
I had as well Derek but that had made no difference to the Metservice NZ display to begin with. All good now now though.
One feature I like is when looking at the full display of New Zealand you gain an excellent idea of the weather across the regions from the wee coloured squares :)
I will wait for the pretty pink :)
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Ok now here is a very valid point that has just been raised to me. I am tossing it in here :)
For the NZ stations already rego'd with WOW Metservice UK, who gave the Metservice NZ permission to add them to the NZ Map, using their data?
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Didnj't read the T's and C's that closely, but I suspect it will be covered in that. There is an education portal on the WOW site, and I suspect the data that is being collected and shared through that and other places. Met Office and Met service shouldn't use them directly as they are not calibrated stations, but you can probably bet they are using them as indicative readings to fill in the local gaps
I figured that they were just displaying the number sent to WOW as kph on the MetService site. I just need to decide now if I feel guilty enough to send wrong readings to WOW, to pull the data from the MetService site, or not!
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Okay, I have signed up, but yet when Go to Metservice I do not see any other stations apart from airports, where do i find "our "stations?
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I just ignored all the unit settings. You don't need them. Metservice displays the correct kph reading for my station.
Also, Phil - they are having an issue with the data at the moment, the local stations dropped off the map this morning. They are looking into it.
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Just a quick update for everyone. We have sorted out the glitch where all the third-party WOW stations were dropping off periodically, and have now operationalised the adding of Site Names (which are not currently included in the WOW observations API). We have also added Weather Cams (yay!) as another toggle option.
It's great to see that we now have over 200 WOW stations on Your Weather! Of course, we know that not all the stations providing observations will be as carefully calibrated as those from our weather fan friends here on NZLW, but our aim is to educate people about the basics of observations and provide another point of interest and discussion that adds public value to our site.
You can read the Your Weather disclaimer (which is more focused on end users than on providers of observations) here: Disclaimer » About MetService (http://about.metservice.com/our-company/your-weather/disclaimer/)
Your provision of observations to WOW is governed by their Ts & Cs. Importantly, they do have server access restrictions in place that help protect your data, as do we.
Glad to see the continued interest :)
Cheers
Jacqui