Is there a way to have rain skip use my actual weather station rain results determine whether or not to skip the rain rather than the forecast for rain? Here in Florida the forecast calls for rain every day in the summer but sometimes it will rain 2" about a mile away but we never get any rain at our location. Otherwise my system is skipping the rain almost every time due to the darn forecast.
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What schedule are you running? For anything other than Flex Daily, I don’t think this is possible. Flex Daily will check for actual rainfall and/or forecasted rainfall 1 hour prior to scheduled run, but other schedules I believe only check once per day.
System is watering twice per week. Using Weather Underground with my Davis Pro weather station.
Seems strange that a system with all this automation wouldn’t look at actual rainfall and determine the need or not. Even the old rain sensors (that never worked) had a way to tell if you got rain. Now I have two of the most sophisticated weather and irrigation controls and don’t have any more options.
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Sorry, I misspoke. Rachio checks 1 hour prior on all schedules. You will have to make sure that whatever PWS you have Rachio pointing to is reporting relative data to your area as well.
How does Rain Skip work?
Rain Skip checks the weather twice. Once twelve hours before and then again one hour before your watering schedule starts. Any time a schedule’s preselected rainfall threshold is met using observed and forecasted rainfall (rainfall in the last 24 and the next 24 hours forecast), the watering schedule is skipped. For example, if you have your rain threshold set to 0.5", and it rained 0.25" in the last 24 hours and is expected to water more than 0.25" in the next 24 hours, your schedule will be skipped.
I am using my local weather station for my yard. The problem here in Florida is that the forecast might say 2", heavy rain and while it will rain that amount somewhere in central Florida within 10 miles, my yard will burn out if it doesn’t rain here. seems to be happening a lot this year.
As long as that local PWS that you have Rachio pointed to is relatively similar to what you see at your house, then it should check 1 hour prior to see if the rainfall totals have been met to determine if a skip is necessary. The only other option is to install your own rain sensor, which will act as an on/off, but not measure rainfall totals…or, install your own compatible PWS that connects to the WU network, which Rachio could then pull from. We have that same issue here in Arizona during our monsoon season. There can be very localized heavy rain, but with the PWS I have Rachio looking at, my Flex Daily has had no issues in over 5 years.
I have my own weather station PWS connected to the WU network. The problem seems to be with the forecast. If we haven’t had rain for three days but the forecast for tomorrow is saying we’ll get .75" it will skip. Maybe I don’t understand how to set it but if I raise the rainfall numbers too high I might was well just shut off rain skip. Seems like with the way I’m connected, I might as well have had the PWS be the rain sensor (albeit a $750 one).
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