Just wondered what interval time most people set their Davis Weather Stations to?

I use 15 minutes interval but wonder if that's to long. The reason I am thinking this is my extra temperature sensor doesn't register a Hi/Lo, just the Hi/Lo from the 15 minute readings (I think).

Have been doing a comparison with digital RC-51 device (set to 2 minute intervals and in one case the Davice was 5.6 ~ 5.6°C, yet a a point within that 15 minute window the RC-51 hit 4.7°C. In general the RC-51 it recording 0.1 to 0.2°C lower than the extra sensor.

One caveat to this is Davis Extra sensor records roughly to 0.5°C intervals. Some odd numbers 8.3, 8.9, 9.4, 10.0, 10.6, 11.1, 11.6, 12.2, 12.8.....etc, never anything in between.

Just a consensus I'm thinking here. :-)

Keith (Southend)

On Sunday, 18 October 2020 at 17:02:13 UTC+1, wrote:
Just wondered what interval time most people set their Davis Weather Stations to?

I have always had mine set to 1 minute. I can't see any advantage to having a longer interval.

--
Freddie
Alcaston
Shropshire

On Sunday, 18 October 2020 18:18:30 UTC+1, Freddie wrote:
On Sunday, 18 October 2020 at 17:02:13 UTC+1, wrote:
Just wondered what interval time most people set their Davis Weather Stations to?

I have always had mine set to 1 minute. I can't see any advantage to having a longer interval.

--
Freddie
Alcaston
Shropshire

Wow, 1 minute, I wonder if that's what most people do?.

Keith (Southend)

On 18/10/2020 19:11, Keith Harris wrote:

Wow, 1 minute, I wonder if that's what most people do?.


No. Some users clearly do, but many will use 5 or 10 or 15 minutes or
even simply stick with the default 30 minute interval.I'm not sure there
really is a typical or common interval - people just use whatever
appeals to them.

Personally, I'm unconvinced about the 1-minute interval. Most weather
parameters don't change much from one minute to the next and so you
effectively end up with a substantial volume of largely redundant data
to wade through if you're ever reviewing the data in eg Browse mode.

And eg if you ever did want to upload your historical data to
weatherlink.com (assuming you had a suitable account) or to some other
program or platform then the data volumes with a 1-minute interval could
potentially become troublesome.

Personally, I'd opt for 5 or 10 minutes. But all the options are
perfectly valid and it really is your own preference that counts.

Couple of other incidentals:

Extra temp sensors received by a VP2 console record to a 1°F resolution,
which is why you get that rather curious staircase of values when viewed
in °C.

The temperature transmitters actually transmit in 0.1°F resolution, so
it's a limitation of the console rather than the sensor or transmitter.
And if you have a Weatherlink Live (WLL) unit then that will receive
extra temps in full 0.1°F resolution. NB But WLL is not compatible with
the legacy Weatherlink for Windows program, though more modern programs
such as CumulusMX are compatible.

On 18/10/2020 17:02, Keith Harris wrote:
Just wondered what interval time most people set their Davis Weather Stations to?

I use 15 minutes interval but wonder if that's to long. The reason I am thinking this is my extra temperature sensor doesn't register a Hi/Lo, just the Hi/Lo from the 15 minute readings (I think).

Have been doing a comparison with digital RC-51 device (set to 2 minute intervals and in one case the Davice was 5.6 ~ 5.6°C, yet a a point within that 15 minute window the RC-51 hit 4.7°C. In general the RC-51 it recording 0.1 to 0.2°C lower than the extra sensor.

One caveat to this is Davis Extra sensor records roughly to 0.5°C intervals. Some odd numbers 8.3, 8.9, 9.4, 10.0, 10.6, 11.1, 11.6, 12.2, 12.8....etc, never anything in between.

Just a consensus I'm thinking here. :-)

Keith (Southend)

Mine has also always been set to give 1 minute readings.

Eric Belton (Tilehurst)

JGD wrote:

On 18/10/2020 19:11, Keith Harris wrote:

Wow, 1 minute, I wonder if that's what most people do?.


No. Some users clearly do, but many will use 5 or 10 or 15 minutes or
even simply stick with the default 30 minute interval.I'm not sure
there really is a typical or common interval - people just use
whatever appeals to them.

Personally, I'm unconvinced about the 1-minute interval. Most weather
parameters don't change much from one minute to the next and so you
effectively end up with a substantial volume of largely redundant
data to wade through if you're ever reviewing the data in eg Browse
mode.

And eg if you ever did want to upload your historical data to
weatherlink.com (assuming you had a suitable account) or to some
other program or platform then the data volumes with a 1-minute
interval could potentially become troublesome.

Personally, I'd opt for 5 or 10 minutes. But all the options are
perfectly valid and it really is your own preference that counts.

Couple of other incidentals:

Extra temp sensors received by a VP2 console record to a 1°F
resolution, which is why you get that rather curious staircase of
values when viewed in °C.

The temperature transmitters actually transmit in 0.1°F resolution,
so it's a limitation of the console rather than the sensor or
transmitter. And if you have a Weatherlink Live (WLL) unit then that
will receive extra temps in full 0.1°F resolution. NB But WLL is not
compatible with the legacy Weatherlink for Windows program, though
more modern programs such as CumulusMX are compatible.

I have mine set to 5-min intervals, for no reason other than that it
'feels' about right.

--
Norman Lynagh
Tideswell, Derbyshire
303m a.s.l.
https://peakdistrictweather.org
twitter: @TideswellWeathr

On Sunday, 18 October 2020 at 19:26:47 UTC+1, JGD wrote:
On 18/10/2020 19:11, Keith Harris wrote:

Wow, 1 minute, I wonder if that's what most people do?.


Personally, I'm unconvinced about the 1-minute interval. Most weather
parameters don't change much from one minute to the next and so you
effectively end up with a substantial volume of largely redundant data
to wade through if you're ever reviewing the data in eg Browse mode.
I disagree - especially for parameters such as wind direction and speed. In fact, I get worried if I see a graph of data that remains at the same value for more than three or so minutes.

And eg if you ever did want to upload your historical data to
weatherlink.com (assuming you had a suitable account) or to some other
program or platform then the data volumes with a 1-minute interval could
potentially become troublesome.
If you use Cumulus (either 1 or MX) then this is certainly not an issue. Even exporting to something like Excel and using its graphing is not an issue.

--
Freddie
Alcaston
Shropshire

On Sunday, 18 October 2020 20:32:08 UTC+1, Norman Lynagh wrote:
JGD wrote:

On 18/10/2020 19:11, Keith Harris wrote:

Wow, 1 minute, I wonder if that's what most people do?.


No. Some users clearly do, but many will use 5 or 10 or 15 minutes or
even simply stick with the default 30 minute interval.I'm not sure
there really is a typical or common interval - people just use
whatever appeals to them.

Personally, I'm unconvinced about the 1-minute interval. Most weather
parameters don't change much from one minute to the next and so you
effectively end up with a substantial volume of largely redundant
data to wade through if you're ever reviewing the data in eg Browse
mode.

And eg if you ever did want to upload your historical data to
weatherlink.com (assuming you had a suitable account) or to some
other program or platform then the data volumes with a 1-minute
interval could potentially become troublesome.

Personally, I'd opt for 5 or 10 minutes. But all the options are
perfectly valid and it really is your own preference that counts.

Couple of other incidentals:

Extra temp sensors received by a VP2 console record to a 1°F
resolution, which is why you get that rather curious staircase of
values when viewed in °C.

The temperature transmitters actually transmit in 0.1°F resolution,
so it's a limitation of the console rather than the sensor or
transmitter. And if you have a Weatherlink Live (WLL) unit then that
will receive extra temps in full 0.1°F resolution. NB But WLL is not
compatible with the legacy Weatherlink for Windows program, though
more modern programs such as CumulusMX are compatible.

I have mine set to 5-min intervals, for no reason other than that it
'feels' about right.

--
Norman Lynagh
Tideswell, Derbyshire
303m a.s.l.
https://peakdistrictweather.org
twitter: @TideswellWeathr

My Davis WMII is set to 5 minutes, I seem to remember it was how one of the WL graphs displayed rainfall, just looked better with 5 instead of 15 minutes.

Keith (Southend)

I disagree

I know :-)

- especially for parameters such as wind direction and speed. In fact, I get worried if I see a graph of data that remains at the same value for more than three or so minutes.

New wind readings are available (approximately) every 2.5 secs. So my
view is that a 1 minute interval doesn't begin to capture the detail in
the wind record. So you might as well use eg 5 mins and avoid a lot of
redundant data. The time of any peak gust should be captured separately.

If you use Cumulus (either 1 or MX) then this is certainly not an issue. Even exporting to something like Excel and using its graphing is not an issue.


My concern is that there are people out there with 25 years' (and more)
of Davis data. I'm sure that it's less of a problem with just a few
years. But 25+ years at 1-minute interval exported to a single file
gives quite a chunky file.

But, whatever, we've all set out our views and reasoning so Keith can
put all the options into a hat and draw one out :-)

On Sunday, 18 October 2020 20:47:53 UTC+1, JGD wrote:
I disagree

I know :-)

- especially for parameters such as wind direction and speed. In fact, I get worried if I see a graph of data that remains at the same value for more than three or so minutes.

New wind readings are available (approximately) every 2.5 secs. So my
view is that a 1 minute interval doesn't begin to capture the detail in
the wind record. So you might as well use eg 5 mins and avoid a lot of
redundant data. The time of any peak gust should be captured separately.

If you use Cumulus (either 1 or MX) then this is certainly not an issue. Even exporting to something like Excel and using its graphing is not an issue.


My concern is that there are people out there with 25 years' (and more)
of Davis data. I'm sure that it's less of a problem with just a few
years. But 25+ years at 1-minute interval exported to a single file
gives quite a chunky file.

But, whatever, we've all set out our views and reasoning so Keith can
put all the options into a hat and draw one out :-)

Thank you for all the replies on this one, I think I'm going to change to 5 minute interval. It will mean I'll have to modify a spreadsheet I use when I 'Export data' and use an excel spreadsheet to calculate various bibs and bobs, but not a major issue.

Keith (Southend)