I don’t know if you guys have any way to check for missing NOAA station data, but thought I’d share it if you do.
Yesterday morning we had very heavy rain for a couple hours. The sun later broke out and dried everything off with temps in the 80s. Enough to trip our rain sensor set to 1/2". I looked at my moisture charts this morning and saw 0.00" of precipitation reported for yesterday June 24th.
I headed over to http://w1.weather.gov/obhistory/KTAN.html, the NOAA weather station we use 3 miles away at an airport. I knew 0.00" was not true unless the station didn’t receive the same storm. Interestingly the observed weather column states rain yet the precipitation columns are empty of any rainfall data.
Our rain sensor had fallen below 1/2" nearly 5 days prior. I have to imagine it was or nearly entirely dry by the time it tripped yesterday morning. I don’t remember any significant rainfall over the few days before yesterday morning.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I do see that this weather station was reporting precipitation data as recently as last week, but you are correct in your observations that this weeks rainfall was not correctly reported.
I have opened a ticket to report this particular weather station for investigation with Aeris, our WeatherAPI provider. In the meantime I might suggest switching to a personal weather station, as I noticed there is one within 3.75 miles of you (MID_KTAN).
Thanks for your patience while we look into this matter, I will update the thread once we’ve heard back.
Thanks @Mitchell. I switched to MID_KTAN, but I’m wondering if it is the same station as the NOAA listed KTAN. It also shows no rain on June 24th.
Also a bit odd. I noticed even though I switched to MID_KTAN today, the 26th, my moisture levels now show MID_KTAN back to the 23rd… and KTAN on Jun 22nd and all days prior. Is there something unique about the prior-72 hour window where it inserts the new station’s data?
So the reason that we update your weather station for the past 72hrs is to ensure that in the event of a faulty weather station not reporting rainfall correctly (like in this case), once a user has updated to a new station the data would accurately reflect what should have occurred .
I understand your concern regarding the new weather station and how it didn’t record precipitation data for the 24th. I’d like to keep a close eye on the new weather station and see if we observe any further discrepancies in the reporting. I’m still waiting to hear back from Aeris regarding the faulty one and will update you as soon as I’ve heard back.
I brought up MID_KTAN showing no rain because the distance (as shown by Rachio app) between NOAA KTAN and PWS MID_KTAN is only ~0.4 miles different. The runways at airport KTAN are upwards of 0.7 miles long. There’s a possibility they’re using similar/same hardware and managed by the same folks using the same data upload processes.
Clicking “More Info” in Rachio app when looking at the weather stations may have confirmed one of my theories, that MID_KTAN and KTAN could be the same.
If you click “More Info” for MID_KTAN you’ll be brought here…
If you click “More Info” for KTAN you’ll be brought here…
It looks like it may just be the same weather station feeding data to two distributors. I downloaded the data from MID_KTAN and the two stations are extremely close in their readings, and share the same lack of rainfall data.
Hey @scorp508, sorry for the delay. The most recent communication I’ve received regarding this station confirmed that the KTAN weather station was not reporting any precipitation data to NOAA either.
I recently checked the station again and am now seeing rainfall data:
It would seem the previous discrepancy was directly from the station itself. For now I suggest keeping a close eye on the station data and if it stops providing precipitation data again we can attempt to contact the NOAA Southern Region Headquarters directly.
