WXSIM 2018 Released!

Crikey, I don’t know how I missed latestfire.csv, whilst looking for fire.csv! If I sorted the files by latest date/time, the file is just staring me in the face!

:smiley: Hi PaulyA,

Don’t worry matey it took me a while (the date sort was how I found it).

Tom, I did some rough checks against my FWI-Calcs and looking good, I will be scripting a compare in time (when it permits) to look at wxsim-ffdi/fwi/avg against actual FWI-Calc (which also produces FFDI / GFDI / FWI etc.) will be interesting to look back on.

I wanted to do a real quick visualisation of the outputs so here that is, only rough don’t envisage using this long term, will have tables/charts better setup with relevant target levels etc.

https://southfranklinweather.com/weather/charts_Combined_Fire_Forecast.php Note: Currently not live updated.

Kind regards,


Installed here, seems OK will monitor today to make sure.

Stuart

Tom,

A new issue popped up overnight with WxSim 2018. When AutoLearn (WRET) ran, it gives me a message “No Fire Weather in Older Forecasts”. It waits for a response to continue. Since this was running at 3AM, I didn’t respond until I got on my system this morning. I’m not sure what the purpose of this message is, it is very distracting. Is there any way to turn it off so it doesn’t impact my daily AutoLearn run?

Thanks,

Steve

Hi Tom,

Concur with Steve’s comment …

A new issue popped up overnight with WxSim 2018. When AutoLearn (WRET) ran, it gives me a message "No Fire Weather in Older Forecasts". It waits for a response to continue. Since this was running at 3AM, I didn't respond until I got on my system this morning. I'm not sure what the purpose of this message is, it is very distracting. Is there any way to turn it off so it doesn't impact my daily AutoLearn run? #-o

Can you please incorporate a “fix” for this issue?

Thank you. :slight_smile:

Thanks for the feedback! I’ll check on that message about no fire data in old forecasts. It’s true, but it’s not good for it to stop wret.exe if the program is busy doing old comparisons (like for autolearn). Meanwhile, try unchecking the fire weather box in wret.exe (if in fact you’d checked it). Oh, and it IS latestfire.csv, not fire.csv!!

I’ll check on these things.

A little background on the FWI (Canadian) and FFDI 9Australian). The FWI is rather difficult to calculate directly, as there are all kinds of conditions, “if’s”, etc. However, I found a VERY extensive study (from Australia - don’t recall the link at the moment) comparing the two, not only in terms of utility and accuracy, but also in how to (sort of) convert one into the other. The FFDI is more straightforward to compute (though it still has pretty much the same inputs), so I actually am computing FFDI and coming up with FWI from that, using the relations found in the study, BUT I actually went further and used some additional data in the study, to alter the weightings of the different factors. So, with the same input, the sort of “fake” FWI should be very close to correct values. A caveat there, though, is that the study used Australian sites, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this “FWI” is a bit off from the real one … in Canada (it’s probably almost perfect in Australia). Actually, the toughest part was to incorporate something about fuel moisture. The FWI has very complicated rules for that. I approximated these (and a similar drought index in FFDI) as best I could, using recent precipitation and other climate data from WXSIM. That’s a pretty significant part of the calculation.

Thanks for the feedback!

Tom

I think I’ve got a fix for the wret.exe message about no fire data (which was stalling the program if you had that box checked, and it was looking at older forecasts, as is the case when using autolearn, for example). I simply deleted the"error" message, and set the fire weather index to zero for any older forecasts, for which it was never computed or saved. I haven’t tested this much, but it should be fine … please let me know!

Just use

www.wxsim.com/wxsimupg.exe

The program looks the same, as I didn’t change any version numbers.

I also note the inquiry about increasing the number of columns in lastret.txt. That can be done, and I’m considering it. First, though, does anyone know if that would “break” existing scripts which read it?

Thanks!

Tom

Hi Tom,

Just some additional feedback : I run AutoLearn at 03:00 each morning as well and after 2 nights now I have not seen any pop up message “No Fire Weather in Older Forecasts” (no issues and has use same season looking back 2 years checked since that feature was implemented ages ago).

I would be interested though, on your thoughts regards my other few questions posted earlier, if you can find the time.

Kind Regards,

Tom,

Ran the “fix” upgrade yesterday, then ran AutoLearn on schedule last night. Unfortunately, still got the same “No Old Fire Weather Forecasts” message and it hangs WRET until it receives a response.

Steve

Tom,

Downloaded the “fix” upgrade this morning and ran AutoLearn this morning after the upgrade install. Still getting the message “No Old Fire Weather Forecasts” and WRET waits for a response.

Dont know why but I am not seeing this FWI issue with autolearn which ran this morning at 3am here. So it is obviously not everyone and must be related to a setting somewhere.

Stuart

Ah, I had that message in more than one place! I’m fixing that now.

Not sure why Stuart’s not seeing it. It generally should show up when you run autolearn … “should” as in, with the “bug” version! In any case, fix coming soon!

Still wondering whether adding more items to lastret.txt (beyond 15) would break any scripts.

Tom

New fix for wret.exe’s fire risk message problem is up:

www.wxsim.com/wxsimupg.exe

Let me know how it goes!

Tom

Hi Tom,
As mentioned in earlier posts , I’m not seeing it either, however I un-checked the wret “Fire Danger Index” after my first run as I wanted to get my Soil Moisture back as not enough items (only 15).
So I just now run with Output Menu #11 selected to create and use the latestfire.csv (hopefully you add more than (15) Items to wret in future.

Regards adding more than (15) items to Wret (will it break scripts) Personally I see no issue and doubt it would, however if it did we will fix them, the impotant thing here is to be able to utilise more of the outputs wxim generates - than we currently can as it is now being limited to only (15).

Also some of these related questions (I asked ages ago) still not acknowledged nor answered (would be nice to know).

http://discourse.weather-watch.com/p/518576

and

http://discourse.weather-watch.com/p/518577

Kind regards,

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the Auotlearn fix. Will test it tonight.

Also, to add my 2 cents worth, I too would like to be able to select more than the current 15 variables in WRET.

Appreciate your support and thanks for the updates. :D/

Hi Tony,

Sorry for the slow response on those questions. latestshort.csv is a special purpose file I created for one user, who needed only certain data and file size was critical. Rather than key it just to him, I made it generally available, as maybe somebody else would need that. The Precip figure is just the precipitation in the last time period (since the last line of data), while the other is the total so far in the forecast run. I do notice they don’t appear to add up, and figured out that the Precip column is specifically in millimeters, while the total is in inches. I’ll look to see if that’s a bug or if I had some reason for that!

The very small discrepancies between latest.csv and lastret.txt are because the data presented in lastret.txt are from the saved forecast data, which has a limited number of digits saved, so these are round-off errors. In the case of total precip, round offs which are being summed sometimes yield differences even in the “kept” digits, and I see some examples of that, like an 8.69 which is 8.6 in the other file. These differences are well below the size of forecast errors, so I don’t know that there’s a need to fix that (by increasing storage of digits in .wxf).

Anyway, thanks for your sharp eye!! :slight_smile:

As for the limit of 15 items, it sounds like there’s a consensus that this is worth increasing, even if it does “break” (an easily “fixable”) script, so I’ll see what I can do on that.

Thanks again!

Tom

Hi Tom,
Thank you greatly for taking the time to reply with detailed answer : However just to make some corrections to the above observation.

1: The Total (TotPrcp column) in my case is actually mm not inches and so what is happening is the (Precip column) is assuming (TotPrcp column) is in inches and converting it to mm, hence the figure being so high.
I can only assume you did that because possibly the person you did it for only used inches and not mm.

If mine was in inches = I would be under water by now :smiley:

2: With ref to my other question (posted earlier) :

I used the Output Menu #11 which creates the (not fire.csv) but a "latestfire.csv", not had time to cross ref against my FWI-Calc Data as yet. Question on the above, I normally have "Output Menu #3" selected, If I leave "Output Menu #11" selected for normal use in order to generate/update the "latestfire.csv", will my normal "latest.csv" and other outputs like Plaintext.txt, Lastret.txt etc still contain same outputs as they would have when I had "Output Menu #3" selected.

I also noticed that “Lastret.txt” contains the “FIRE” Column, (which I assume is the Average FFDI/FWI), If “Output Menu #3” is selected, however as I do not use “Lastret.txt” (other than for henka’s forecast scripts) But I do use “Latest.csv” for many other scripts which does not contain the FIRE data, is there an intend to add this to “Latest.csv”. I suppose dependant on the answer to first question above, this is not an issue and I can use “latestfire.csv” as well as “Latest.csv”.

Put more simply,
1: I am currently running wret with “Fire Danger Index” un-checked.
2: I am currently running wxsim with “Output Menu” #11 Selected. (used to use #3).
2A: Is running normally with “Output Menu” #11 (so I can generate the LatestFire.csv) going to have any impact on my other normal ouputs example (Lastret.txt/Latest.csv etc.)
3: Is there any intent to add more to the “latest.csv” like (WBGT/FIRE), fine if not as I can use (LatestFire.csv) if the above question means no impact.

Hope that makes sense,
kind regards,

I just now posted new versions of wxsim.exe and wret.exe. These are for testing, so I haven’t wrapped them in an installer yet. To get them, just download these files and use them to replace the ones of the same name you already have:

www.wxsim.com.wxsim.exe

www.wxsim.com/wret.exe

The latestshort.csv issue was actually a bug, and my customer is almost surely using metric units (like you), so he’s getting values in that last column 25.4 times too big! I’ll notify him immediately, but I think it was for something he hadn’t quite implemented yet. In any case, I really appreciate that catch, Tony! I’ve fixed it now. It will now be in whatever units you’re using anyway, like the Total Precip figure already was.

I HAVE added FFDI, FWI, and FWIA (their average), and WBGT to the latest.csv file. They’re tacked on the very end, so hopefully that doesn’t break anybody’s scripts. It would be nice to get confirmation of that.

I’ve also extended wret’s option limit to 20 (for each set). Please confirm that doesn’t break any scripts.

And finally, I got the WBGT to calculate for the first row in lastret.txt (it had been either blank or wrong - leftover from the previous run).

Let me know how these go!

Tom

Hi Tom,

Brilliant, thank you.

I have tested a run and all fine,

Templates I use that all pass the test (no issues)
1: The old 3in1 Forecast (Good).
2: The new EWN Style Forecast (Good).
3: The Saratoga Forecast Text (Good).

I cannot test Wim’s version or Jachym’s version. (though did send them a PM).

I did note (thank you for adding the new data to latest.csv) : It it all OK, however now contains (2) Two blank Rows in Header : see below:


Year 	Month 	Day 	Time 	WX Type 1 	WX Type 2 	Temperature 	Hi Temp 	Low Temp 	Rel.Hum. 	Dew Pt. 	Wet Bulb 	Wind Spd. 
												
  	  	  	hrs 	 	 	deg C 	deg C 	deg C 	pct 	deg C 	deg C 	 km/hr 
												
2018	7	31	12	SUNNY      	CHNC. SHWR 	11	11	11	73.2	6.4	8.6	9.3
2018	7	31	12.5	P.CLOUDY   	PROB. SHWR 	11.6	12	11.5	70	6.4	8.8	13.8

This is not an issue for me when I import into MySql, as I will just script around it.

Thank you again, for the “LatestShort.csv” fix as well.

Greatly Appreciated,

Kind Regards,

P.S. Forgot to mention : If anyone has issues downloading the wxsim.exe just change “www.wxsim.com.wxsim.exe” to www.wxsim.com/wxsim.exe in your browser (or use link I just made here).

Hi M.P.C,

The 3in1 you refer to looks like one of Wim’s files (not the Henka style 3in1 files I tested) as stated earlier I (PM’d) Wim regards this, maybe he will respond.
Below from your site which you refer to as “3in1”. http://www.celinmeteo.com/wdisplay/wxsimforecast2.php


</script>
<!-- module wsWxsimParser.php ==== version: 3.01 2015-03-18 -->
<!-- Cached file cache/wsWxsimParserphp_en_Cmmkmhmbcmkm will be loaded. filetime: 1533038963 cachetime: 1533038968 -->
<!-- module wsWxsimGetFile.php ==== version: 3.01 2015-03-18 -->
<!-- Newer file ./../wdisplay/latest.csv will be loaded. filetime: 1533038962 cachetime: 1533032949 -->
error retreiving standard data, file seems corrupt, uoms found: 

Obviously you downloaded the test version of wxsim.exe and wret.exe, did you make a backup of your original, if so revert to that an do a re’Run, else what you have now is extra fields in Latest.csv (which is what that file of yours is using) and obviously can’t cope with the change in Latest.csv, from recollection that script of Wim’s was (good and capable of) the ability to also use Lastret.txt, so you could use the settings file to change to that and get up and running again - maybe.

P.S. Hi M.P.C : I see you have deleted your previous posts, and that your issue with http://www.celinmeteo.com/wdisplay/wxsimforecast2.php has been resolved. What did you do…?

Kind regards,