Probe for Windows Help: Forecast Rain and ET

Probe For Windows can use forecast rain and evapotranspiration (ET) when calculating required irrigation, both for the next irrigation and also for the whole season

The total amount of forecast rain in the next 7 days can be calculated for each site, and the value is left in variable %ForecastRain%.

This could be used in...

An email with: %ForecastRain% mm rain forecast in the next %dripdays% days
A graph report (.gpt): %ForecastRain%:amt:1 rain is forecast in the next %dripdays% days
In a text report (.rpt): Formula: ForecastRain, format: AMT
On the sites screen (.spt): Formula: ForecastRain

The predicted rainfalls will also be shown on the time graph if GraphMenu/Options/Local tab: Time Graph Plot delivered rain: (using graph style='Rain/Predicted' [ID=80])
Predicted effective rainfalls (over FULL = runoff) will only be plotted if they are different from the forecast amount (graph style='Rain/Predicted/Effective' [ID=79])

Forecast ET can be used to schedule the next irrigation - see ReadingsMenu/Predictions tab:??? with Forecast. The current value of ForecastET will be shown

The value of ET will be shown on the graph if Formual with source=ForecastDWU

A Location is an geographic area that ha steh same forceat. All site sallocatd to a Location will us ethe same forcats

Each location has 'Scenario's - rain, ET, temperrature, etc (scenario is a sill name) Each scenario can get its vale indepdantly from oteh rscenarios in the location Thsi allows ET, fro example, come from a diffrent forcast service thatn 'remperateure It also allow the value sto come from historical wetaherfiels - n

Each Scenario csbv file that is downlaode from a Forcast, and its own options teh calculate

A location needs adding for each area, and a scenario needs to be added for each value

Each is then allocated to a location on ReadingsMenu/Scheduling tabb???

When a location is selected, the same location can be set for all oteh rsites for the groeer

ProbeMenu/Forecast

There are various on-line providers of weather forecasts. Some are free, and some charge for specialised reuirements

Most require the GPS lat/lon of a forecast location

Sentek users can get a forecast that includes both rain and evapotranspiration (ET).
A Meteoblue forecast location and API Key is required, which can be got from an IrrimaxLive account

The location of a site is set ReadingsMenu/Scheduling tab: Options

When a site is allcated to a location, all sites belonging to that grower can be optionally set to the same location.

Each grower can also be allocated to a location - see
Users will be asked if they want to set all sites for the grower to the same location

ProbeMenu/Forecast

To enable forecast ???

Add a location for each forecast area
For that location, add a Rain and/or ET ???

Location

tab: Locations

Only active Locations can be selected for a site

Scenarios

tab: Scenarios

File: examplehigh.ran - a comma-delimited text file with rain amounts
Date Column: the column in the file that has the date
Adjust dates: If a 'historical' weather file is being used, the date in the file could be for a previous season
if , the date will be adjusted so that it is within the current season (??)
Rain Column: the column in the data file that has the rain amount
Total-by-day: Some weather files will have a value every hour
if a daily total rainfall will be calculated
Header lines: the number of header lines if the file that should be skipped - default = 1
Minimum: rainfalls below this value will be ignored
Units: the units of the data in the data file - mm or ins. (All internal calculations are in metric)

tab: Values

Displays the rainfall events and the values found in the file
This tab is just for checking - the calculated %rainfall% amount for each site will be from the date of the last reading, for the following 7 days
A period can be specified for calculating total rain in the period
Rainfalls found in the period will be highlighted
The total amount in the period will be shown
- re-load all rainfall files to update values

Download

tab: Download

The rainfall files are read from the shared\ folder (eg: shared\examplehigh.ran)
These files can also be downloaded from a web site

Method:

http: The file must be on a publically available server eg http://www.rsne.com.au/; The forecast file is downloaded from Sentek Irrimax; Server: Name of the Irrimax database
MeteoBlue: The forecast file is downloaded from the MeteoBlue service; The location must have GPS Latitude amd Longitude
Open Weather: The forecast file is downloaded from the ???e; The location must have GPS Latitude amd Longitude
FTP an ftp server

download file for this scenario

Irrimax download requires the start date of the forecast, and a key (supplied by Sentek)

download files for all scenario's

At startup - download all active files at Start-Up

tab: files

Name and location of files that contains the list of Regions and then list of Rainfall Scenarios
Defaults: shared\regions.txt, shared\rainfall.txt

Forecast Services

Services shipped with v3.1.233

tab

ID	Service	url	Parameters	Notes
2	IrriMax	`/?cmd=getsdbcsv &name='server' &key='APIKey' &from=` selected by user, format='yyyymmdd'	Uses MeteoBlue service Only available to Sentek users From date as selected The forecast file is downloaded from Sentek Irrimax Server is the name of the Irrimax database
7	MeteoBlue	`http://my.meteoblue.com/packages`	`/basic-1h` hourly values `/basic-1h_agro-1h` with Agro package `?lat='latitude'&lon='longitude'` `&hourly=evapotranspiration`,etc `&format=csv` `&apikey='apikey'` optional	ET is only avaialable with 'Agro' package subscription must select format: csv
8	OpenMeteo	`http://api.open-meteo.com/v1/forecast`	`?latitude='latitude'` `&longitude='longitude'` `&hourly=rain,et0_fao_evapotranspiration`,etc `&apikey='apikey'` `&format=csv`	must select format: csv
6	NorwayMet	`https://api.met.no/weatherapi/locationforecast/2.0/compact`	`?lat='latitude' &lon='longitude'`	link to web site
1	HTTP	`https://www.domain.com/forecasts/latest.csv`		Any publically available file

Additonal services can only be added on tab: Files Forecast file: shared\forecasts.txt

The url can be changed by user, but the parameters are hard-coded

Server is from tab: Download, and is saved with the Scenario

Latitude, Longitude is entered on tab: Locations, and is saved with the Location

Scenario Types

Scenarios have a 'type' - rain, ET, RH etc

ID	Name
0	Rain
1	ET
2	Temperature
3	Max Temperature
4	Min Temperature
5	RH

Users can add more

How a Scenario is used

TODO

Select the scenario that will be used for predicting a full season

TODO

Files

Files
tab: Files

TODO

'3.1.211
' attempt to append downloaded data to existing file - abandoned
' file re-downloaded if file date is different
' option download from Now-2 days note: saved in INI, not forecast file
' CalculateTotal - ET - use fractional days
'  append text to %Forecast% [5 days]

emails to Greg
JFYI... (will be going in .online help)

forecast debugging stuff

(1) tab: Files 'save Response' ON 

	a file with the raw data from API weather server is also saved

	eg: oysterbay_raw_YYYY_MMM_dd_HH_MM_SS.csv

	so should be a new file every 

for IRRIMAX, all the header line are stripped out, and just the 'cooked' data values saved to: oysterbay.csv 

other servers can be in JSON format (really weird)


(2) For Irrimax, the first date/time should be 00:00 on the  day 
	eg Last reading on 19 Jan 08:00
	 at 19 Jan 13:00
	the first line in csv should be: 19 Jan 00:00

	TODO: I need to check what Prwin does with values between 00:80 and 13:00 - (should be skipping)

Other API weather services will only return records *after* the  time


(3) For IRRIMAX the times are in local time of the 'location'

  MeteoBlue times are also in local time of GPS coordinate

  TODO need to doco other servers NorwayMet,OpemMeteo


(4) tab:Report 

	will alter all dates to From date:
       times are not changed
	output file: oysterbay_adjustdate.csv


    

	will generate a new file with the entered Rain and ET values

	output file: oysterbay_generate_dd_mmm_yyyy.csv 

	30% of rain will be on day 4, 70% on day 6

	ET will vary each hour, and total might not be exact 

   the file name will need changing on both ET and RAIN

   if  used it will write over: oysterbay_adjusted.csv


(5) a straight weather station file can be downloaded with https://

or it could be download: [none], and manually put in \shared folder

This would allow using a previous seasons weather to get forcats values

(6) Excel locks a csv file while it is loaded - so cant re-downlaod 

(7) File date set by ftp

(8)

>>>Difference between Total and Average? Valuse show OK on Forecast/Values Tab


The IRRIMAX raw data is hourly, rain values are in mm (per hr), and ET is in mm/hr

But Prwin needs/assumes 'daily' values

on tab: Scenario 'Aggregate' is converting from hourly to daily

Fruition has...

Rain: none  (so mm/hr)
ET: total   (so mm/day)

---
on  tab: Values '7-day Aggregate' is calculating how 'FORECAST_RAIN' and 'FORECAST_ET' will be calculated

Fruition has...

Rain: total (mm in 7 days)
ET: average (mm/day

that works ok for Fruition, but I also test plotting 'predicted rain'

But with the Fruition settings it looks confusing, with 24 vertical bars each day, with values like 0.5 mm, 0.15 mm    

and the plot of predicted RZ1 values can also be confusing - it can go up each hour, but it's from hourly rain and not ET

So on tab Amounts I have...

Rain: total (so I can plot 1 bar of total mm in a day)
ET: total

Techo stuff

ID	Service	API URL	Values	Requires	Notes
2	IrriMax	`https://www.irrimaxlive.com/api/?cmd=getsdbcsv&key=ABCDEFG&name=SERVER&from=YYYYMMDD`	Rain, ET	Server, APIKey	Sentek licence
Sentek csv format		`ESReadings DateTime,01.Raw,01.Cooked,02.Raw,02.Cooked,03.Raw,03.Cooked,04.Raw,04.Cooked,05.Raw,05.Cooked,06.Raw,06.Cooked,07.Raw,07.Cooked,08.Raw,08.Cooked 2020/05/01 00:00:00,65535,8.97,65535,0,65535,1027.6,65535,78,65535,2.06,65535,256,65535,0,65535,0`			Date in Col_1 Rain in 07.Cooked (Col_15) ET in 14_Cooked (Col_29)
7	MeteoBlue	`https://my.meteoblue.com/packages/basic-1h_basic-day?lat=53.062082&lon=-0.068262&apikey=ABCDEFG`	Rain	lat/lon, APIkey	free for 1 year date col_1 basic: rain col_6, RH col_9, temperature col_12 `Time , convective_precipitation, felttemperature, isdaylight, pictocode, precipitation, precipitation_probability, rainspot, relativehumidity, sealevelpressure, snowfraction, temperature, uvindex, winddirection, windspeed` Agro package: Rain col_10, ET0 col_4, `Time, convective_precipitation, dewpointtemperature, evapotranspiration, felttemperature, isdaylight, leafwetnessindex, pictocode, potentialevapotranspiration, precipitation, precipitation_probability, rainspot, referenceevapotranspiration_fao, relativehumidity, sealevelpressure, sensibleheatflux, skintemperature, snowfraction, soilmoisture_0to10cm, soiltemperature_0to10cm, temperature, uvindex, wetbulbtemperature, winddirection, windspeed`
csv format					date in Col_? rain in Col_?
8	Open-Meteo	`http://api.open-meteo.com/v1/forecast?latitude=59.91&longitude=10.75&hourly=temperature_2m,relative_humidity_2m,precipitation,et0_fao_evapotranspiration&format=csv`	Rain,ET,RH	lat/lon	no charge date col_1 `precipitation,temperature_2m,relative_humidity_2m,et0_fao_evapotranspiration,evapotranspiration`
csv format					date in Col_1 rain in Col_2
6	NorwayMet	`https://api.met.no/weatherapi/locationforecast/2.0/compact?lat=53.062082&lon=-0.068262`	Rain	lat/lon	no charge
csv format		`Date/Time, AirTemperature, RH, WindSpeed, WindDirection, Cloud, Pressure, Rain 2024-11-07 13:00:00, 9.4, 88.5, 3.7, 139.4, 100.0, 1030.3, 0.0`			date in Col_1 rain in Col_8
3	OpenWeatherMap	`https://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/onecall?lat=53.062082&lon=-0.068262&exclude=hourly&units=metric&appid=ABCDEFG`	Rain	lat/lon	daily forecast for 8 days needs api key
csv format		`Date,Rain,POP,Temp.Max,Clouds,Humidity,Pressure,dew_point,wind_speed,uvi`			date in Col_1 rain in Col_2
5	WeatherAPI	`https://api.weatherapi.com/v1/forecast.json?q=53.062082,-0.068262&days=7&key=ABCDEFG`	Rain	lat/lon, APIKey	no charge for 7 day forecast
csv format		`TODO`			date in Col_? rain in Col_?
4	WeatherStack	`https://api.weatherstack.com/forecast?query=53.062082,-0.068262&forecast_days=7&hourly=0&units=m&access_key=ABCDEFG`	Rain	Lat/Lon	no charge
csv format					date in Col_? rain in Col_? Standard: $10/month 50,000 calls

GoogleMaps to get GPS Lat/Lon

Location	Latitude	Longitude
Blenheim, NZ	-41.512321	173.959556
Lincolshire, UK	53.062082	-0.068262
Sydney, Australia	-33.856438	151.192648
Chico, CA, USA	39.695655	-121.905637