As a past Hobbyist Developer - if you feel uncomfortable with possible litigation - you can always put in a disclaimer - I did. I personally wouldn’t hold you responsible - but there are questionable people out there…
Keep up the good work.
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Hello Duane,
Metservice has a reasonable looking page for a starting point. It’s got a few formulas there as well.
I’ve only skim read it however.
https://about.metservice.com/our-company/learning-centre/frost/
Cheers
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Not all husbands are like you. There will be some that will throw Duane under the bus instead of facing their wife.
Disclaimers is a solution but I don’t like those since no one reads them and it adds cruff to the app.
Remember, I’m not a meteorologist, so I don’t make predictions - it’s outside my field. I’ve only computed derived data once and that was relative humidity from dew point, pressure and absolute humidity. But this was a well defined equation in the meteorological field. I don’t think I calculate relative humidity any more since it has since been released by the data source.
Unless there is a standard, validated and well accepted equation for frost, I am reluctant to make predictions.
The solution is to build a tool for users to build (and share) their own predictions.
Currently, Flowx is the messenger and a tool. This makes it very easy to answer issues about inaccuracies. Making weather predictions is not an area I’m comfortable going into. I don’t understand enough about it.
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Thanks @Chris. This suggests 4 methods to estimate frost with the expectation of fine tuning. Looks like frost prediction is location dependant.
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There are a few ways to get frost prediction into Flowx:
- create the prediction outside of Flowx and it’s brought in as a data source. This might be a Python script to take data from all the data sources and create one frost prediction.
- create a tool to add (and share) predictions to Flowx.
- find a data source predicting frost.
I like these approach because it keeps Flowx neutral and just a tool. I’m happy to help with any of these.
The other thing I like about the approaches above is that it can be applied to other predictions, e.g., lightning… Flowx just pulls the data or prediction in.
Cheers, Duane.
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Tasty! I would likely pay for premium for this. Weather is an extremely local experience. Urban microclimates and regional topology largely make weather info gross estimations. Over time, having access to Flowx data, the brain picks up on relevant assumptions on the consistency of the gross estimations; as relevant for a given extremely local experience (home). Gives us the tools to see the data that makes Flowx graphs and a tool to make simple equations, which result in our own graphs. Wow! If that can be overlayed on the map as well. Kudos! Brownie points! Amazeballs!
Just need more time. Actually, I have the same amount of time as any other, I just need less other things to do.
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@Windsailor, I was just talking to Ohan on another post. Ohan wants sunset predictions. I was thinking maybe we can create third party predictions. In other words, you come up with the maths and, if possible the python code, and I can run it on the workers to generate the prediction which we pull in as a data source. There are some extra things we need to iron out but I’m sure we can find a way.
My main goal is to keep Flowx separate from predictions, i.e., just the messenger.
Cheers, Duane.
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My turn to whelp.
You do realize your asking someone who was raised on a dirt farm with limited programming ability.?
We used something that was very similar to the Grass Minimum Temperature method in the link above, an electronic temperature probe with an activation setpoint set ‘XYZ’ inches above the plant with a mercury probe as visual verification. And we adjusted each location as necessary. I would imagine the height of the plant would also be a factor on what method to use… And / or have layered methods based on priority and conditions with bias options…??? That seems a bit convoluted - usually simple works best.
Give me some time to think about it and I’ll email you.
Blow my mind! Wow, I could see here how a social aspect of weather could happen through Flowx. It would be interesting to have access to “dirt farmers” creations if an accompanying summary was provide with what and why. And, all the other interesting hobbyist, citizen scientists, professions… which use weather data. That’s a bit more than a task, that’s a roadmap!
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I agree. We just need a separation with Flowx. It could be a separate forum category. I have to be careful because it I get involved in too many projects, I have less time to add new data and features to Flowx.
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What happened to this consept?
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On the to do list
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just an idea: isn’t frost if temperature falls below dew point temperature (and dew point temperature is below 0 °C, otherweise it’s dew or fog) - just my understanding of what dew point means …
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Hi and welcome @mbobrovs,
Yes, it might well be but I’m not in the position to start making predictions for a few reasons. I’m not skilled in that area and if the frost predictions are wrong - whether due to the formula used, the code or the input data (predicted dew point) being wrong - I will be the one having to field the emails. My plate is full with development of just the app and support.
For example, there are many ways to calculate probability of precipitation or “feels like” temperature.
My preference is that someone else makes the predictions and I add it to the app. If there is any issues, I can redirect users to the source of the predictions. It’s so much easier 
Really, I don’t have the resources to do predictions.
Cheers, Duane.
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Hi Duane
Fairly new to the app, but wondering if you could create a function so there are alerts when temperature (or other weather conditions) are predicted to be in a certain range?
Thanks!
Michelle
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I believe that something like what you @Mkosovec are asking for is already on @duanes list of things to add:
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I don’t plan to weather alerts issued by Met Services. But I do have a notification editor on the todo list where you can create your own notifications.
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Yes - that is what I was hoping for! Thanks so much! and thanks for the quick response!
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