Is it possible to use Australian BoM data for weather intelligence

Settings Weather
1

It seems that after an upgrade recently the few weather stations I could select in the app all disappeared. Most Australian users would probably like to use the Bureau of Meteorology data in the weather intelligence option.

I know the BoM make weather data available, but I don’t know which data to ask for, how to use manipulate it to the right format, make the Rachio use it, or if there’s a cost. Obviously the ideal is the free weather forecasts, but maybe that’s only visible on their web pages…

Given the frequency in the new Rachio 3 makes it illegal to use one in Australia, any hope of Rachio working a way to use BoM data directly just died. Australia, we’re on our own.

Does anyone have any experience using Aus BoM data with the Rachio? I assume something would be needed to turn it into PWS looking data or some other correct format. Anyone got any simple to follwo steps, or keen to write an API we can all use?

2

What station were you using in the past? Our software upgrades shouldn’t have impacted existing Aeris or pwsweather.com stations.

Not if I can help!

If you can feed this data into pwsweather.com it might work, if not it won’t.

Like you mentioned R3 supports weather underground that has many more stations but unfortunately that product is not allowed in Australia. At some point the product team might make this feature available to other users but that is up to that team and other variables.

:cheers:

3

Thanks Franz,

What data from the Aus BoM would I want to get to push to PWS for the Rachio to then use for weather intelligence?

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/stations/ should show all the data they have (it’s a lot), and I’m not sure what’s relevant.

4

@AussieDaveF

I don’t think it will be possible to import that data unless someone has a lot of time on their hands and can build a fairly sophisticated data import tool.

I reached out to our weather provider and unfortunately you are about 61 miles from the closest station. I guess that is the price you pay for living in Tasmania :wink:

Hi Franz,

Thanks for reaching out and providing the query below.

You are correct - this is a matter of how far the closest station is. I was able to verify the closest station was at the Launceston Airport approximately 61 miles away. Taking the users lat / long and adding an exaggerated radius to an /observations query will show me the nearest station and it’s distance:

http://api.aerisapi.com/observations/lat,long?filter=allstations&radius=500miles&fields=id,place,relativeTo&client_id=[]&client_secret=[]

“response”: {
“id”: “MID_YMLT”,
“place”: {
“name”: “launceston airpo”,
“state”: “”,
“country”: “au”
},
“relativeTo”: {
“lat”: -41.8664703,
“long”: 148.2817841,
“bearing”: 293,
“bearingENG”: “WNW”,
“distanceKM”: 99.155,
“distanceMI”: 61.612
}
}

I understand this isn’t an ideal suggestion, but the customer is more than welcome to utilize their own personal weather station and submit it to our network. Please let us know if you have any additional questions.

The only real option at this point would be getting your own PWS (they are fairly inexpensive) and then sending your data here http://www.beta.wufyi.com/

One of our amazing community members @Gene maintains that service which funnels PWS data to weather underground.

:cheers:

1 Like