Misplotted Stations

Downdraught

Hello,

I was looking at your observations display the other day and noticed there was a station in Comfort Cove. (I placed a circle where it should be on the bottom photo, it doesn't seem to be showing data today so I can't get it to show up). When I moused over it, it said it was a WMO station. I found that odd because I work for the local Met Office and we don't have a station there. It turns out there was a station there long ago, but the same ID number is being used for a station in Timmins, Ontario now (see top image). That would explain why the wind was often backwards and the temperature was always quite a bit warmer.

Similarly, I noticed a second station (see bottom photo) for Holirood seems to be about 10 degrees too warm and showing opposite wind direction. We don't have a station there either, so I suspect this one is also misplotted. It doesn't show a WMO ID, so I'm not sure where this one should be, but if I eyeball the current temperatures, it does seem to fit Ontario-ish region better. Although that could just be a coincidence.

Cheers!

idefix37

@downdraught
Concerning the second weather station, it is shown as a madis station, so it is generally a personal weather station. Many of them show wrong values particularly for wind, but sometime for temperature too.

The first one being disappeared, difficult to say more.

Downdraught

@idefix37

It came back. Here is an pasting from a colleague in my climate division after I had asked them if we used to have a station there.

"I searched for the WMO ID 71193 that you indicated was plotted on windy.com near the former location of Comfort Cove (which station, Comfort Cove, had data in the past, available from the climate archives).
Windy: wmo 71193 Comfort Cove, Nfld. (weather station)

The WMO ID 71193 is currently assigned to a station in Ontario, TIMMINS CLIMATE, data 2008 to 2021.
https://climate.weather.gc.ca/climate_data/daily_data_e.html?StationID=47547. That might explain why the temperatures were too cold.

I found this by searching for this WMO ID in the station inventory list (downloaded Aug 31) available from CDO, here: https://climate.weather.gc.ca/about_the_data_index_e.html . From there, click on the Get More Data link, goes to a google drive.

If you had time to contact windy.com, they may be able to investigate and correct this error. They might find the station inventory useful to check other stations, potentially."

Ahmed A.AS

Same here, see this topic.

Downdraught

@ahmed-a-as Cool! Thanks for the link. Looks like they may be looking into it as per the response from that thread :)

vsinceac

See rather OSCAR, the only official catalog for WMO stations here.
As a main member of WMO, the Canadian Met Office is expected to maintain metadata of its national stations in this catalog, too.

Korina

@downdraught @Ahmed-A-AS @idefix37 Please check the official catalog of WMO station as @vsinceac mentioned. We import data from that database.

Ahmed A.AS

@vsinceac @Korina The official catalog of WMO stations website link is also included in the topic which I mentioned above, are you alright?
@Korina If what you are saying is right, why there are too many misplaced stations and many others are not existed here at Windy?

Korina

@ahmed-a-as Hello, I think we are all all right.

@Downdraught @vsinceac @idefix37 We will look at our source and possibly make some changes if needed.