@Peter –
Our coords are 33.6774 lat and -117.2157 long …
There’s one specific thing about OWM that confuses me. Our OWM data came from the other side of the valley, about 5 miles away. Generally, that location’s data is similar data as far as I’ve seen on WU. (OWM still has never had our PWS data available, even after submitting for many months now.)
But for OWM, it almost seems like their data is not even real. It’s like it comes from some third party service, or fabricated based off of some forecast data or something. Or even when there is actual data to use, I have no idea what they are actually doing there with that data, because it’s horribly wrong.
When I said that OWM caused us “damages” on our landscape, that is entirely true. We never had an issue with OS until OWM. We’ve actually had to invest quite a bit more than stated in my previous post due to the OWM data, but I really don’t know to what extent that data directly affected our landscape. (It was bad, believe me, we went for probably 2-3 weeks or more of zero water before I even noticed — all our watering happens before the sun comes up — so of course I should have been more attentive.)
What I know for sure is that the OWM data was so completely different compared to reality that I can’t even think for one second that the data was coming from a legitimate source — even for 5 miles away. Though it was coming (supposedly) from the other side of the valley, what OS was using wasn’t even close to reality.
48 hours after switching back to our PWS, the OS weather data was 100% different and we were actually having proper irrigation on our land.
So I’m a bit confused where OWM actually gets their data. We have been “submitting” our PWS data to them for the past few months, and they have accepted it as far as the API is concerned, but I’m positive that our data isn’t even being made available. There is no way to verify that they are receiving it or not. Their entire system (in my opinion) is fatally flawed. There’s something very very wrong with their data.
Using their web UI, I can’t even find the actual location that they were providing to OS. And — while very pretty — their weather data in the UI isn’t usable to me in general … Not that I absolutely require Fahrenheit, when switching to Fº on their website, everything is still in Celsius. But most importantly, the data in our area is *bad*. Aside from the usability issues that their service has for an “average user”, I am still confident that they are not using real data, or that something in there is fabricated to some degree from data that may or may not have ever even existed — or maybe it is a terrible AI product. I honestly don’t know where they are getting their data from, because at our location, it isn’t even close to real life.
THANK GOODNESS for your efforts in allowing us to use our PWS again. I was manually doing every single watering station each day just to get by. I honestly don’t care about OWM now, so don’t invest your time to look into it. I am just grateful and happy that I don’t have anything to do with them anymore.
I truly believe that there is a real issue with OWM. Something that’s not apparent on the surface. If there is an actual problem, it would be that we don’t have the ability to verify if they even have real data for any given location — not that the data is “bad”, per se. Bottom line: something is very wrong with their data. The UI and maps are very pretty, though. And everything is quite attractive on the surface … Under the hood, though, it’s complete trash as far as I’m concerned.
~Laz