Precipitation Reporting Issues

We got some rain here in the Phoenix area yesterday, so I was surprised to see a notification this morning that my grass zones had watered. I went back and looked at the weather station I am linked to and it was reporting .2 inches yesterday (which seems low) but when looking at the moisture graph for yesterday I am showing precipitation of 0.0. That seems like an error in pulling the rain data over from the weather station is occurring?

Hi @aaronlhx82 – thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Would you mind clarifying your issue a bit?

Are you using our Flex scheduling for the zone(s) in question, or another type? (As Needed / Interval / Specific Days) Moisture graphs only apply to Fixed schedules.

I understand your surprise. Do you know if the .2 inches reported exceed your rain delay threshold? This may be why your schedule didn’t skip. If you would like your schedule to skip when this amount of rain is reported then you may wish to lower your rain delay threshold a bit. Otherwise, if this precip amount is not accurate for your area, then you may wish to look into choosing a different weather station.

As for the moisture graphs, I wouldn’t rely on those to be an indicator of your weather station’s accuracy. If you’re using any schedule but Flex, the precip data will not be reflected there.

I hope this helps. Thanks and happy watering!

~Lucas :rachio:

Thanks for the response. I am using Flex, so I would expect the .2 inches to be shown on April 30th in the calculation of the Current Moisture Balance (Prev + Irrigation + Precipitation - Crop Evap = Current Moisture Balance). What I am seeing is that the weather station is showing .2 inches of rain on the 30th, but the moisture graph details showing 0 for my zones on that day. I would expect with Flex that the .2 inches would be used in the formula above and most likely would have determined that watering was not needed on the 1st due to the increase in the Moisture Balance.

If I,read this correctly, it is a concern that the wether station precipitation was not being reported by rachio in the moisture graph, thus not being acted upon?

That is correct.

I would send it to support@rachio.com
There have been a few other posts that seem weather data related.

If you’d like to PM me the email on your Rachio account, @aaronlhx82, I’m sure I could follow up. We’re happy to help you out! :rachio:

I’m also moving this to our new Flex Scheduling section, in hopes that fellow “power users” can help clear things up.
Welcome to the “cool kids” table. :wink:

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