The gauges show both average and gust data, neither of which are 'fake weather.' Peak gusts are important to aircraft pilots and mariners. They also are important to analyzing and predicting changing weather conditions. Wind speeds and directions averaged over various past time intervals, ranging from minutes to months or even years are important to other kinds of analysis.
I have temporarily enabled public access to a software development site where you can see gauges updating at 3-second intervals, although the wind is very light right now and not as interesting as it often is. If website visitors think near-real-time weather information is interesting after the presentation is finished, they will be able to watch it. If they don't, they will be free to ignore it and get their weather information somewhere else. Some people will see value in near-real-time information. Others won't. Bob On Monday, February 20, 2017 at 11:53:51 AM UTC-8, Andrew Milner wrote: > > @ tempus: > > 1. Windspeeds do indeed change rapidly, which is why there is usually a > 10 minute averaging period to cover reported wind speeds. > > Measuring gusts and wind intensity > > Because wind is an element that varies rapidly over very short periods of > time it is sampled at high frequency (*e**v**e**r**y 0.25 sec*) to > capture the intensity of gusts, or short-lived peaks in speed, which > inflict greatest damage in storms. The gust speed and direction are defined > by the maximum three second average wind speed occurring in any period. > > A better measure of the overall wind intensity is defined by the average > speed and direction over the ten minute period leading up to the reporting > time. Mean wind over other averaging periods may also be calculated. A gale > is defined as a surface wind of mean speed of 34-40 knots, averaged over a > period of ten minutes. Terms such as 'severe gale', 'storm', etc are also > used to describe winds of 41 knots or greater. > > > 2. What cobblers - rapidly changing gauges could be reporting conditions > now, 5 minutes ago, an hour ago - or even yesterday. They do not > demonstrate or prove anything apart from maybe the speed of an internet > connection. If one can have 'fake news', one can have certainly have 'fake > weather' also!!!!!!! > > > > > > On Monday, 20 February 2017 20:57:26 UTC+2, tempus wrote: > >> 1) Wind speed and direction data tends to change radically from >> second-to-second and is interesting to watch, especially in coastal areas >> where high wind speeds often cause significant property damage and even >> loss of life. >> >> 2) Rapidly changing gauges quickly demonstrate to website visitors that >> they are in fact watching near-real-time data. >> >> Bob >> >> On Monday, February 20, 2017 at 10:23:14 AM UTC-8, Andrew Milner wrote: >>> >>> I would prefer to ask the questions - why am I providing 3 second >>> updates? What practical value do 3 second updates have for most users?? >>> What is the point?? >>> >>> >>> >>> On Monday, 20 February 2017 19:33:27 UTC+2, tempus wrote: >>> >>>> This is merely a suggestion for consideration. >>>> >>>> Space characters are commonly used within and between key-value pairs >>>> in associative arrays to improve human readability. Because >>>> 'gauge-data.txt' human-readability isn't important, the file could be >>>> reduced in size 158 bytes, plus another 15 bytes if spaces after commas in >>>> the "WindRoseData" string were removed, which would make the file 10 >>>> percent smaller. >>>> >>>> 173 bytes doesn't seem like much. However, with 3-second updates there >>>> will 86400 / 3 = 28,800 file transmissions per day to each concurrent >>>> user. 28,800 x 173 bytes = 4,982,400 unnecessary bytes-per-day-per-user. >>>> It is not uncommon for individual pages at active websites to have large >>>> numbers of concurrent visitors, so why waste the bandwidth and processing >>>> time? >>>> >>>> Bob >>>> >>> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "weewx-user" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to weewx-user+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
