Shall we trust Weather Intelligence +?

Troubleshooting Tech Support
1

Hi,
I have been monitoring the Weather Intelligence + rain skip events and would like to share with you my findings:
Here is the 36 hours weather forecast for my location (from The Weather Network - Italy, Varazze (SV)): 50 mm of precipitation

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Despite of that huge amount of rain forecasted, just now at 8pm my sprinklers were activated.
To be honest, I would have expected to have a rain skip.

Has Weather Intelligence stopped working?

Any clue will be appreciated.

2

I can’t answer your main question, but if you have a local, reliable weather station, I recommend switching to that instead of using WI+. WI+ is great for those with no nearby stations (better than nothing). Actual nearby measured values will always trump statistical values.

That being said, there is a certain amount of forecasted weather that smart weather features like Skip rely on. If a crop has great sensitively such as lettuces, Flex may not be the best schedule to use.

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3

Hi @Kubisuro
thanks for your reply.
Regarding your suggestion of using a nearby PWS, I could use mine own PWS that is connected to WU network.
But I have the folowing considerations:

  1. Accuracy: on Rachio instructions, they suggest to use WI+ instead of a PWS as it’s more accurate (they say: “Weather Network: aggregating data from 300.000+ weather stations and other sources for HYPERLOCAL weather”)
  2. Reliability: my PWS could go offline for any reason (battery, internet connection, fault, etc.)
  3. Forecast: PWS can only report current weather, while what I am discussing in this post is the forecast weather, that my PWS cannot provide.

As far as I have learnt here, the forecast is based on TheWeatherNetwork service. And on that site the rain was forecasted, indipendently from my PWS. So why the WI+ didn’t report the forecast?

4

Beats me what forecasting system WI+ uses. There can be big regional differences and the model may not be great for Italy sinceThe system seems largely meant for US customers. A PWS that’s correctly reports rain in your backyard will always be more accurate than WI+ statistical values for rain.

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5

I use manual schedules, so the WI+ will skip rain based on forecast. How can my PWS give forecast?
It can only provide observed (i.e past) events.

6

PWS will give you the observed as you have stated. Rachio still used a weather API to manage forcasts.

What do you have the rainfall threshold set for your controller?

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