Unnecessary wind skips

I’m in Southern California where we’ve been experiencing Santa Ana winds, but the Rachio has been doing unnecessary wind skips on the few days where the winds have died down and there was an opportunity to water.

Today is one example. The winds have died down, and the sources I’ve looked at are all forcesting 10 mph winds. I have my own PWS which is reporting even lower wind speeds. The Rachio is set to wind skip at 20MPH, but decided to skip anyway.

I have the same concern. The day it wind-skipped for me was forecast to be windy, but the forecast was for later in the day. In the pre-dawn hours my system waters, the wind was calm. Combine that with the fact the humidity was extremely low, and it was a skip that should not have been made. Unfortunately, all the local weather station options I have seem to be much different than other forecasting services, even though they are reading conditions much closer to me.

What are the wind speeds at the PWS you have Rachio pointed to?

The Santa Ana winds are extremely drying for turf and plants because it dries up the moisture on the leaves that the plant transpires to cool itself. The plant gets thirsty and demands more water from the roots. If there is a wind skip during Santa Ana’s the plants need more irrigation than they would normally. You may want to turn off Wind Skip.

I’m well aware of this, which is why I was watching my system closely. My lawn would have been dried to a crisp without manual intervention, but manual intervention wouldn’t have even been necessary if the system worked as expected.

On the night before I started this thread, I went to bed with the expectation that my lawn would get watered the next day, but Rachio incorrectly decided to apply a wind skip at 4:21 am just before the schedule was supposed to run.

I’ve seen more than one occasion where both forecasted and actual wind speeds (including gusts) are well below the wind skip threshold, but Rachio has applied a wind skip anyway. Turning off the feature doesn’t address the issue of it not working as expected.

They recommended a Weather app Called Underground that allow one to identify your location by your local streets. I’m going to try it. Let me know what you learn on your end.

Happy ThanksGiving.
TC

I’ll ask again, what were the wind readings at the PWS that you have Rachio pointed to? Is there a chance that the particular weather station is seeing abnormally high gusts, or is reading incorecctly?

@rachiosupport, does wind skip work same as a rain skip, checking forecasted vs. actual wind at time of scheduled run?

We only use forecasted hourly wind checks.

:cheers:

tmcgahey, I mentioned a couple of times that the wind was below the threshold. Gusts were as well.

franz, What sort of time frame do you look at? I’ve seen multiple times when the forecast was calm enough for most of the day, but still got wind skips.

We use the forecasted hour that the schedule will run.

:cheers:

Franz,

Why do you use forecast wind instead of actual, as long as its available? Doesn’t make sense to me

Thanks

-Ray

We have to predict what the wind will be. We can’t use actual because we check at 12 hours and one hour before scheduled run.

:cheers:

What source is used for the forecasts? I’ve seen more than once where all forecasts I’ve looked at were showing calm winds for hours before and after my scheduled time, but it’s skipped anyway.

We use Aeris weather and your geo coordinates for forecasts.

:cheers:

Franz,

I’m in the foothills of a mountain range that goes ~6,000’ higher than our house (>2K feet directly adjacent). The wether source Rachio is using for my forecast is very often far from my actual microclimate. I really wish Rachio would give us the option to override use of forecasts and only use actual local data instead. For me, that would be my own weather station.

Thanks

-Ray

If you have a PWS and can get it connected to Wunderground, I think Rachio can utilize it. Correct me if I am wrong @franz @rachiosupport

Unless I’m mistaken, Rachio gives priority to weather forecasts from who knows where over actual real time data from my PWS. That’s how it appears to work and I find it very frustrating.

-Ray

Hey @RayT !

There are two ways to get weather data. With Weather Intelligence Plus on the Rachio 3, you can get interpolated weather data from tons of weather stations. Or, you can choose to pull data from one single source - including your PWS.

You can do this by going to More > Weather Intelligence

:cheers: Lo

Laura,

My Rachio 2 is already set up to use weather data from my own PWS. If you read earlier in this thread you will see that the problem is Rachio chooses to use forecast data rather than actual data. That’s a problem for myself and many others where the forecast, from some distant weather station, is often very different than the actual weather at my house

-Ray

Hi Laura,
I have a Gen 2 and manage a Gen 3.
How do I set up Wunderground weather? I have found it to be quite accurate for both locations.

Thank you.