5 ms·
Hi, by "data fidelity" we mean that there are a lot of errors and irregularities in the liquid-equivalent precipitation measurements reported by the stations.
by jrd79 16y ago
Hi, by "data fidelity" we mean that there are a lot of errors and irregularities in the liquid-equivalent precipitation measurements reported by the stations. Some stations don't report it at all, or not reliably, and some report it but with internal inconsistencies. For example, stations may report in 1-hour, 6-hour, or 12-hour intervals, but they frequently report 1-hour measurements that don't even come close to adding up to the 6-hour measurements. We just want to make sure we take some time to understand these issues with the data feeds before we start publishing them.
The snow depth feed is also a really cool graph. We have it more or less ready, but it is perhaps the least reliable measurement.
For example, during that recent snow storm in Chicago it reported some pretty crazy big snow depth numbers for a couple reports and then without correcting the old reports just dropped the snow depth by more than a meter in the next report. This is fine if you have a human reading the report, but it makes the graph look really weird.