Today it has been raining since 9am, and just stopped at around 12:30PM. It rained across almost the entire city and has rained enough to make puddles everywhere, but my weather station that I just installed only registered “Rain” from me touching the top of the unit to install
This shows how much water there is on the ground
But none of the stations around this area reported any rain
Are these really this inaccurate?
I am in California and have the same issue.
That will depend on the type of rain. The sensor array does not detect mist or drizzle.
And I correct your topic to read the true meaning of your post.
I wasn’t necessarily talking about the alerts, just the fact it never registers any rain. The title now sounds like its an alerting issue, which its not. The alerts work fine when it actually registers
This sounds like a deal breaking feature, what’s the point of measuring rain when it can’t measure half the rain? There was enough rain yesterday morning to half fill my wheelbarrow that I left out, but since it was too light for the sensor the device thinks there was zero rain
When I saw this report, I checked the radar for your area … and generally, there were spotty/sparse showers, so, it would be best to compare your readings to measurements from a co-located device (but, yes, with rain sufficient to make puddles, there may be an issue with the Tempest itself) which you may or may not have access to (of course). The fact that no other site reported rain could be explained by the spotty nature of the precip.
There are some things to read that may help … https://help.weatherflow.com/hc/en-us/articles/360050050673-Tempest-Troubleshooting-Device-Observations-Measurements-Data-#:~:text=The%20haptic%20rain%20sensor%20in,is%20very%20sensitive%20to%20vibrations.&text=If%20the%20rain%20was%20heavy,2.36v%20to%20conserve%20power. and https://help.weatherflow.com/hc/en-us/articles/360046411573 . Please also make sure that nothing is covering the haptic sensor or impeding its operation (I know that’s a long shot, but, worth a check). Have you posted a photo of the installation (there is a thread where that is encouraged)?
I did look at your battery level this morning and it looks good, so, assuming this was at a similar level when you posted, this does not appear to be the issue.
Unfortunately the Tempest sensor measures rain and not necessarily precipitation. This does have to be addressed.
Here is a short video I took, it was drops of rain. It looks like Streamable kills the quality, but in the first few seconds you can see the rain drops against the garage roof contrasting
I think this is a huge issue, its almost a deal breaker for me
Put a ticket in with support. Let them look into it. Your device may be defective.
Either your sensor has an issue or this system was wasn’t designed for your type of use.
Put in a ticket and let tech support take a look. If it is not a sensor, you can box up and return the unit for a refund.
I do have support case currently open, they pretty much said the same thing about being too light. They did say they are looking into the rain algorithm in general though so thats good
The issue is that this entire area got about the same level of rain sooner or later between 9am and 12PM. I was near several other locations around that time, and it was raining, but no ones Tempest showed rain
I don’t agree this shouldn’t be addressed, its clearly used to measure rain, and it is very clearly raining at the time of it not reporting rain
There are plenty of reports of under or over rain detection caused by too light rain, vibrations inducted by wind, etc, etc. Clearly, the rain sensor is a big fail and nothing that meets one’s expectations and not a data source you can trust at all. I doubt Weatherflow can address these issues easily, they would have done it already since people are complaining for a long time now. Too bad, I’m rather happy with my Tempest otherwise.
You hit the nail on the head there
Is there a way to disable the rain meter all together? I’d love to one day upgrade to a better rain gauge while keeping the other features of the Tempest
Fortunately the design of the system is such that WF could introduce a tipping bucket or other rain gauge into the system and then use the haptic sensor for onset of rain and duration. It could then be calibrated on an ongoing basis using the other rain gauge. The hub can accommodate something like 16 devices so that part isn’t a concern.
This would be excellent, hopefully its in the works!
