For the last year, I’ve been trying to get the proper setting to rain skip after considerable amounts of rain. I’ve used the Weather Network of the 300,000 weather stations. I’ve used a Weather station, both National 4.5 miles away and even a personal weather station (Ambient Weather WS-2902) located within a mile of my home. I have even adjusted the amount of rain to skip down to 1/8th of an inch. Nothing seems to work to skip a watering. What else should I be checking? Thanks and will appreciate any insights someone wants to share.
@joeladler1 I’d try again finding a reliable PWS that is relatively close to your house. That might be the most accurate way to get the precipitation you are looking for. The most accurate is to get your own PWS if you are in a severe micro climate, but that could be overkill for what you are looking for.
Thank you Franz for your insights. Just to clarify, how do I discern the reliability of the PWS I have chosen. I assumed that any offerings through the Rachio app were considered reliable. I checked their rain accumulation readings from that day and the one that is shown in the app and they were very close (App shows .44 in, KNJCRANF14 shows .46). Now that I think of it, if the app shows .44 for the day, why wouldn’t that activate the rain skip. Seems logicial, yes?
That’s difficult to answer, typically trial and error 
Yes. Did you have that specific station chosen for the day of precipitation?
For this time I think it was on the 300,000 station. But this wasn’t the first time it failed after more than a .4" of rain fell. I was then using the PSW I mentioned above. At that time the setting for skipping was at 1/4". I then lowered it to 1/8" for this last lapse. That made no difference. Nothing I do seems to make a difference. That’s why I was asking if there was something else I should be checking or adjusting. I thought maybe the zone settings could be part of the problem.
I would pick that PWS again, and if the problem happens again I can have the engineering team review the data and make sure that it is being used for weather skips appropriately.
Thank you for your offer. I’ll keep in touch.
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Here is the latest where I was notified by the Rachio app on 5/2/2025 at 3:19 pm that the scheduled watering for the morning of 5/3/2025 would be skipped. In the early morning of 5/3/2025 at 2:19 am, the Rachio app unskipped that same scheduled watering with rains being forecast for the next 3-4 days with total accumulation well over an inch of rain. Attached is the forecast from Wunderground, and screen shots of the Rachio app and the actual rainfall for 5/3/2025 recorded on a a personal rain gauge. At this point I have to believe that the Rachio app and it’s associated logic are broken and can’t be trusted to control my watering schedule. I can see the day coming where I’ll want to have a scheduled watering take place after a week of drought and 80°+ weather and the Rachio app will skip it.
“Flex Monthly 6-2-2024 w/bushes” was the schedule that was used up until today. Today I changed it to a test routine (" Front Lawn Monthly New Lawn Only") which only runs each zone for 1 minute at a 9:00 am. I wasn’t going to have it run for 3 hours at 3:00 am during a rain storm again.
@joeladler1 I had the team review and this is where we can only rely on accurate forecasts that are out of our control. The first forecast was 0.26 inches which you saw, we then query for the forecast one hour before the schedule runs and received a 0.09 inch forecast. We use a third party weather provider for forecasted data.
I will have the team create a support ticket with our weather provider to see if they have further insights.
Thank you for looking into this. It could be helpful to understand what’s happening and how the Rachio app and the weather provider info interact. Also, how does the individual psw we choose impact all of this?
An individual PWS wouldn’t change the issue with the reliability of forecasted weather unfortunately. This issue isn’t specific to Rachio as all smart controllers will use a similar (if not the same) third party forecasting.
Like @franz said, the forecast for your area was was updated to expect .09", which is below the threshold for a skip. Actual rainfall obviously was significantly different than forecasted. While it would be cool if Rachio could cancel a run in the middle if actual rainfall was significantly more than forecasted, I assume that is a major undertaking.
If this is a common issue in your area, you can attach a rain gauge to Rachio that will physically shut the unit off while the rain gauge has moisture. Could be good, could be bad.
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I’m in Las Vegas. We just set a record for rainfall in the month of May and we were less than a week into the month. My Rachio 3 did not initiate a rain skip despite multiple flash flood and regional storm warnings from NWS. I’ve had my Rachio 3 for four years and it has always been reliable on the rain skips. There is a PWS at the middle school two blocks from my home so I don’t think this is a service reliability issue. Perhaps a software issue as Rachio transitions to a premium model?
The problem started last year and continues to get worse. And yes, it must be something to do with the software.
What is most frustrating is when a system initiated skip is reversed in the middle of the early morning while your asleep. That can’t be reacted to when every forecast in the area tells me there will be over 2 inches of rain in the next 3 days. I’ve now resorted to setting a reminder the night before a scheduled irrigation. Along with that, I’ll set the rain skip feature at the max and will initiate a manual skip or let the system run based upon the concensus of wunderground and accuweather before I go to sleep. I’ve also changed the schedule to a flex daily schedule so I can monitor the moisture level.
I had the team check your data and a few things
- The day the system did not skip the forecast precip prediction was 0 inches precip for May 3rd (Saturday). Observed precipitation was zero for the previous days which looks correct. The prediction was clearly wrong since you received .24 inches of precip on that day.
- It looks like you are on the weather network and not a PWS. This will only impact observations.
- I’ll see what our weather provider responds in terms of forecast accuracy to @joeladler1’s forecast. Depending on the response I might also see what they say about this, since our system is only as good as the forecast data we retrieve.
Our current weather software will not and has not changed as we have released new features (valve monitoring, heat wave adjust)
@franz Thanks so much for the quick response. In Las Vegas, our previous record for rainfall in the month of May was .96 inches. We had 1.44 inches in less than three days. So if the observed precipitation was zero, then there is a problem.
Yes, my settings are the aggregate weather network which includes the PWS and two others within a one mile radius of my home.
Last summer I received a notification from my Rachio app for a rain skip because of forecasted rainfall. There seriously was not a cloud in the sky so I figured it was a glitch. And two hours later the sky opened up. And that’s how it’s been for the previous three years with my Rachio 3 - like Nostradamus level accurate. I only took the time to comment on this because this appears to be a recent anomaly.
I’m a Landscape Architect and we’ve done irrigation design in house for the past 25 years. We don’t do much residential work but when we do, I have spec’d Rachio as the controller since installing it on my own home four years ago. I think Rachio is a great product but I’d like to continue recommending with confidence. I hope your team can identify what appears to be a glitch. Thank you. I am rooting for your success!
Yeah, in this case forecasted was zero which is concerning, based on that day getting 0.25 inches (by reviewing a PWS close to the controller)
I would recommend picking a PWS (if you have one that you trust) versus the weather network. We use the PWS you choose for observations, and that will be the most accurate observed precip if it is trusted and close to the controller. The weather network is always used for forecasts since PWS do not offer that capability.
I’ve had that experience as well in Colorado (which is very dynamic) and its definitely magical when it happens.
Oh very cool! I’m sure you have seen a lot of change in Nevada over the years.
Thank you for recommending our controller.
Passing along information from our weather provider. Nothing that concrete, they will continue to monitor. Forecasts are difficult 
Thanks for your continued patience throughout! Worked with my engineering team on this one and have some information to share.
In that first case (2025-05-03T07:11:10.393637Z), it looks like storms rolled through around 3-5, which is around when our midnight-to-midnight accumulation would tick over. It’s possible the bulk of the rain was modeled to fall an hour later, putting it into the next days 24 hour bucket.
In that second case, the precipitation fell during the afternoon/evening and for a fairly large area. Unless it was a low probability event, it does raise some eyebrows that we didn’t have a forecast for that.
We’ve monitored some since, but we think we need more data to fully determine what might be causing any abnormalities assuming this is a continuing issue. Unfortunately we only keep forecast data internally for about 3 days, so we need an example that is more recent for us to properly validate. We will keep checking, but if any more come up please send them our way. And if we may also ask, kindly let us know roughly when any of these queries are made that will help us track them down as well.
We are sorry we don’t have a clearer answer for you just yet, and we greatly appreciate any information you are able to share should the issue reoccur. Please let us know if you have any additional questions.
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