As I said earlier, it seems some organizations recommend reporting ‘calm’ when under a few mph for several seconds, which makes sense for the reasons you mentioned…
1 Like
I’m still going with my earlier musings on leaving the direction indicator on last known wind direction during a null in wind.
2 Likes
I too would like to see an option where it reports the last known wind direction when it is 0.0. It doesn’t look right for sure to have the majority of the winds graphed out of a northerly direction on calmer days.
1 Like
I am getting the issue of Sky showing North and zero today, yet it is blowing a hoolie outside. The wind has been constant - been watching it while looking at my phone. Gusts of 20mph and then back to North & zero, yet it is constantly blowing. There is no way the wind suddenly dropped to zero!
When the air is calm, its direction is NULL not ZERO (which implies North). I realize the sky unit is reporting zero because there is no air moving over its sensors and so zero output - but could it not be programmed to level the direction output as the last value when there was velocity?
The way it is now makes WF report a predominant wind direction of North - which VERY VERY Rarely is the case in Houston TX.
WF is working this as a known issue. There has been a lot of discussion about this lately, and they are addressing it in a near future update.
5 Likes
Here is one of the public discussions.
4 Likes
More details for software developers:
https://community.tempest.earth/t/low-winds-mostly-northerly/2433/14?u=vreihen
2 Likes
The next firmware update will correct this “north bias” issue due to the “0” direction being included in the averaging even when speed is “0”.
6 Likes
Along the same line, I have an issue with Wind Direction. In my 40+ years in boating, aviation and Coast Guard, numeric compass direction is always referenced in 3 digits. It’s a little disconcerting to glance at the weather page and seeing 28 degrees in August. Maybe a third format for displaying Wind Direction?
1 Like
i think the openings post is related to the fact that when there is no wind at all, the arrow still goes to the north, and doesn’t keep its last position. This is not related to the preference for north at low wind speeds (which was solved in the latest update)
indeed, that is what I understood, but that is not what the opening post is about.
Like many posts here, it went off topic.
I combined a couple threads here because they were both talking abou the same issue. And that issue is actually two issues, both of which are resolved at this point:
-
Wind direction is undefined (null) when wind speed is zero. Yes, this is true. We do report the direction as zero (not NULL) in the wind data, but it should be NULL, since wind direction is undefined when wind speed is zero. We may address this in a future firmware update, although it would probably break a lot of things downstream - the toothpaste is out of the tube, so to speak.
-
Zero values for direction should not be reported or counted as “North” when speed is zero. Also true! In the Smart Weather apps, wind direction is displayed as “—” when wind speed is zero. And these values are not used in the calculation of the direction average. Third-party applications should also implement that business rule: when wind speed is zero, direction is undefined.
For more discussion on how to calculate “average direction”, check out this thread: Calculate wind vector-direction
and then there was a third issue: leave the arrow in the same direction it was, at the time of the last valid (non zero speed) measurement of the direction. It wouldn’t be wrong, as there is no new direction to show. Showing the latest valid measurement at least conveys some info to the user. “A moment ago the wind was coming from the indicated direction”, which gives a bit more info than “–”
I do agree that these zero-speed directions should not influence the average direction, but that seems to be solved now.
have I? David is mentioning “wind direction is displayed as “—” when wind speed is zero”. and my suggestion is when wind direction is invalid because the speed is zero, to display the last valid measurement instead.