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Weather Forecast lying means dead grass
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Jun 2024
post by ady624 on Jun 6, 2024
\ IMG_22251290×2796 149 KB](https://community.rachio.com/uploads/db1097/original/2X/4/44bec26bf93cec2aec63e4915d215288e68ea609.png "IMG_2225")
We had 1.55” of rain here in the last 75 days. Forecast constantly promises rain tomorrow, or next hour, only for that to keep being pushed back as time elapses. The result is I am battling Rachio to water my lawn. It won’t water it for the next two weeks. Using the Empty feature makes no difference. I get the “bad imput => bad results”, but I cannot control THAT input.
What I am suggesting here is that Rachio uses a weighted “trust” on the forecast, where if it already refrained from watering once and that rain forecast has not materialized, it should go ahead and water on next occasion. This is a choice to make between never watering vs overwatering a little. I’ll take the overwatering any day. During this weird conditions in South Florida, my grass would be dead if I just trusted Rachio. Again, not necessarily its fault, but don’t blindly trust forecast, it is, after all, a probability, not a certainty.
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post by ady624 on Jun 6, 2024
This is the forecast:
\ IMG_22261290×2796 284 KB](https://community.rachio.com/uploads/db1097/original/2X/b/bfcb13f270e2f44eb9b4bb198553335043db3810.png "IMG_2226")
It looked exactly the same a week ago, too. No rain, despite the forecast.
post by Fl-user on Jun 6, 2024
That looks like the Tempest unit’s forecast. Not Rachio’s forecast. What is the forecast in the Rachio app?
post by ady624 on Jun 6, 2024
1
Correct. The Rachio view matches that, the problem is it never rains, it just says it will. And consequently, Rachio keeps skipping watering and I use quick runs in the morning to compensate. This is some past “forecast” still shown in Rachio.
\ IMG_22331290×2796 254 KB](https://community.rachio.com/uploads/db1097/original/2X/7/77b4b720e7170d6dfaf0ad3b3234f04f534e9fd3.png "IMG_2233")
post by Fl-user on Jun 6, 2024
1
The Rachio screenshot says Today is sun/cloud without rain. Today being 6/6. You don’t show any days past today from the Rachio app. The Tempest screenshot has Today (again 6/6) as a sun/cloud/rain with a 20% chance. Views don’t match.
Are you using Flex daily? From my understanding, Flex Daily uses current weather predictions whereas, Flex Monthly uses historical weather data. Neither would water if rain above the rain threshold was determined by the weather station.
post by ady624 on Jun 6, 2024
the forecast changes several times a day. The “will rain” keeps being pushed back. The problem is I have watering scheduled before sunrise, so the decision to skip happens around midnight. I thought you wanted the “past”. See how Rachio still shows rain each of past days, but only a drizzle of 0.01” one day. No rain on all the other days, but Rachio happily skipped watering. Here’s current status:
\ IMG_22341290×2796 247 KB](https://community.rachio.com/uploads/db1097/original/2X/7/72eb8c3f0f84bbdbac974bc6f62330cfc880eb7e.png "IMG_2234")
\ IMG_22351290×2796 269 KB](https://community.rachio.com/uploads/db1097/original/2X/5/51b6e3dc2a9273934e49c588a86791043d8f6b84.png "IMG_2235")
post by ady624 on Jun 6, 2024
Again, this is last week all over again. A week ago, forecast looked identical, rain every day. It did not rain and I had to babysit waterings, otherwise my new sod would be dead by now.
post by Fl-user on Jun 6, 2024
Rain drops on past days isn’t what happened, it was what had been predicted. I edited my post above while you were typing. Please review. And what is your rain threshold set at?
post by ady624 on Jun 6, 2024
Flex Daily as the post was created in that category. I disagree that Flex Daily uses rain skip threshold (set at 1/4” in my case). Fixed uses rain skip, Flex Daily runs a balance sheet with the actual rain observed/expected. The Flex Daily never “skipped” per se, it won’t show in weather intelligence skips either, the fixed schedules I had to create would do that and I even disabled rain skip to make them work - they do take forecast into account.
post by ady624 on Jun 6, 2024
Correct. Rachio still shows the “past forecast” is what I said. That was the forecast, rain. Today was “rain” until the evening when it turned to partly cloudy. It’s been like this every single day. Starts with a rain forecast, ends up not raining at all. It’s like the perfect storm of chain events. Not necessarily Rachio’s fault, and I cannot blame Tempest either, Apple Weather does the same thing. Keeps saying it’ll rain at 6pm until 4pm when that becomes 9pm and so on. Rain is running away from me
post by Fl-user on Jun 7, 2024
Sorry, I didn’t look at the category your post was started in - Flex Daily.
My Flex Daily uses the “bucket”. My zones are set to 50% depletion. When I look at the zones page, each zone has a soil moisture %. My 5 yard zones are currently showing 4% (which isn’t actually 4%, it is 4% before getting to the 50% depletion). Rachio uses 0 - 110% to indicate the amount from 50% to saturation. Confusing at first.
Anyway, the app has scheduled a run tomorrow morning which will occur unless we do get rain. And I think we’d have to get 1/4" or more before Rachio wouldn’t water as that is my rain threshold setting. But, it might simply add the lower amount of rain to the % and perhaps move the watering to Sunday.
What are your advanced settings on a zone?
post by ady624 on Jun 7, 2024
Ok, now we’re speaking the same language
Yes, the actual precipitation + remaining predicted precipitation for today is added to the “bucket” in the precipitation row. If the result at the end of the day (balance + irrigation + precipitation - evapotranspiration) is high enough, watering is pushed back. It’s exactly what’s been happening for a week now, each morning, due to the high precipitation prediction, Rachio decides to push that watering back, only to receive no rain for the day. Then the story repeats the next day. This causes the balance to be a constant 0 (0%).
I have water availability of 0.12 in/in, with root depth set to 6in and allowed depletion set to 50%. This means that the range 0-100% on the chart represents 0.12 * 6 * 0.5 = 0.36". The top 6" of soil can hold 0.72" of water, with the top 50% of that (3") holding 0.36". I understand how the allowed depletion works, it’s a weird choice, but you get used to it. Nozzle precipitation is about 0.52in/h, with an 80% efficiency. This means 0.36" at 80% efficiency and 0.52in/h precipitation rate takes about 50 minutes (0.36 / 0.8 / 0.52 * 60 min). Back to my problem, here are the observed facts:
- Forecast says precipitation is a-coming - albeit at typically 20% chance, for a total of 0.5" or more. 0.36" will make the balance sheet exceed 100% regardless of starting point.
- Rachio trusts that (despite the 20% chance) and assumes rain will compensate a watering skip
- Rain forgets to arrive, no precipitation, leaving the end balance back at 0%
- new day, repeat from step 1.
the lawn is therefore never watered. Even today, Rachio says, based on future forecast, that the next watering is June 21st. Forecast is rain every day, but so it was last week too. Still no rain, except for a 0.01" last night. 1.56" of rain in the last 77 days. Last real rain was 3" on Mar 23rd.
Possible solutions:
- take precipitation chance into account - dunno, maybe apply the chance % to the expected amount? More thought needs to be given here. A 20% chance of rain almost ALWAYS ends in no rain, or 0.01", or TRACE
- once future precipitation prediction was taken into account but not materialized, for the next watering chance, ignore the prediction once, allowing a watering to go through. It seems better to over water than not water at all?
Another example: last Monday, I had watered manually and the 5 zones with new sod were somewhat mid range of moisture levels, with no planned watering for Tuesday (I can only water Tue, Thu, Sun). I had hit Empty on all 5 of them bringing them to 0%, this caused Rachio to show watering the next morning, Tuesday. Went to sleep happy that this is going to work, woke up to only 2 of the 5 actually having watered. What happened was that the precipitation amount expected has changed throughout the morning and each schedule had checked it an hour before it ran. As the predicted amount dropped, the last two schedules in the list of 5 were allowed to go ahead and water. I am using independent Flex Daily schedules for each zone to avoid the problem with end before sunrise, where regardless of how many zones will water, they start at a time as if all would water). I’ve been observing this for a while now, and am pretty sure I understand the workings. Again, Rachio works with the data it has, bad data leads to bad decisions. Let’s try and account for bad data, is what I’m proposing here.
Thank you,
Adrian
post by Fl-user on Jun 7, 2024
If you can only water 3 days a week, that isn’t ideal for using Flex Daily. Flex Daily works best when it can water whenever it calculates that it needs to.
Here is where I’d start.
- Ensure your Rachio is looking at your weather station.
- Delete all of your schedules and create 1 Flex Daily with all zones AND all days ending before sunrise.
Run this for a few days ( or week or two) and see if it works correctly.
If it does work, check with whoever is restricting watering days and see if you can get a waiver for using a smart controller. You may have to send the info about the smart controller and how it actually saves water by watering only when needed. From what I’ve read, some counties do provide a waiver.
post by ady624 on Jun 7, 2024
Sure,
- It is using my Tempest. Same happens with national weather (it also suggests rain is coming :D)
- I can try that, sure - what’s different this week is that chance of precipitation is in the 50-70%, as opposed to 20% for the last week, so I hope I’m not out of time. Actually, I hope it damn rains I don’t want to keep paying the water bill
The Palm Beach Water Department has that rule of 3 days a week. We’re lucky, Broward next door has 2 days a week. I am aware of the issue with Flex Daily and less than 4 days, it has worked fine until the fake forecasts started. Again, I think this is the perfect storm situation, when all events happen in a certain way. I have set all schedules to allow all days, and it still says June 21st as next, I’ll disable all schedules and create one with the 5 zones and see where that goes.
post by ady624 on Jun 7, 2024
Not looking promising so far, but I have to let it run for a few days. Still says next watering day is June 20th. Forecast is rain every day, which is why June 20th.
\ IMG_22371290×2796 165 KB](https://community.rachio.com/uploads/db1097/original/2X/f/f9c604a5fdf6a5ce4c940eaeb3a2cb654e0cabdd.png "IMG_2237")
\ IMG_22381290×2796 199 KB](https://community.rachio.com/uploads/db1097/original/2X/a/afe3f5d233a7a0a0a835aca7a67f138d884b13fa.png "IMG_2238")
post by ady624 on Jun 7, 2024
the forecast as seen by Rachio:
\ IMG_22391290×2796 260 KB](https://community.rachio.com/uploads/db1097/original/2X/1/1a3bd103bb934f912ed8970997956837b941ae1a.png "IMG_2239")
\ IMG_22401290×2796 249 KB](https://community.rachio.com/uploads/db1097/original/2X/2/2c1ca23200375a20ced5cab62d0bdb9b37f2b71a.png "IMG_2240")
\ IMG_22411290×2796 256 KB](https://community.rachio.com/uploads/db1097/original/2X/5/5fba4a5a4071eb2048d4c50f32f0b7126b6722b3.png "IMG_2241")
post by Fl-user on Jun 7, 2024
1
How about a screenshot of your zone page showing all the zones & info?
I’m up in central Florida. My schedule has tomorrow & Sunday as watering days and then next is the 19th. Chance of rain between 10% and 70% on each day in-between. Documented here to see how it changes over the next week.
post by ady624 on Jun 7, 2024
They are showing 110% because I manually ran them, the grass is wilting…
Let me go ahead and Empty the five zones
\ IMG_22421290×2796 866 KB](https://community.rachio.com/uploads/db1097/original/2X/4/4a5596ced95fa791f9d7b9c36ba2a4f0f91fd11e.jpeg "IMG_2242")
post by ady624 on Jun 7, 2024
If I empty the zones, it shows as if it will water tomorrow morning - however, come morning, it won’t. At 1am when it checks for forecast and sees “rain coming” it simply pushes back the watering, happened two nights already.
post by ady624 on Jun 7, 2024
I have a theory. The problem may come from the fact that the moisture graph is capped at 0%-110%. In all reality, 0% really means 50% with my allowed depletion of 50%. The moisture level can actually go below 0%. If it did, the sum of precipitation+forecast+irrigation-evapotranspiration would provide a more accurate look at the state of the soil. It would allow waterings even if rain is predicted, because it would take more water to reach a level in the top 50% allowed depletion of mine. The fact that 0% is the bottom and no further water depletion is possible, allows small amounts of rain to skip the watering, even when the soil is in dire need of water.
post by Fl-user on Jun 7, 2024
Since the zone moisture is at 110%, it won’t water tomorrow regardless of rain or not. Soil moisture will need to get to 10% or below before watering will occur.
Emptying the zones as you have should cause it to water tomorrow, if you have it set to any/all days.
BTW, did you actually measure root depth in each zone?
Not that it matters what weather station you have, but I have a Davis Vantage Pro 2 and I have rain predictions in my area similar to yours as I stated in my post above yours.
post by ady624 on Jun 7, 2024
Root depth is not there yet, new sod, about 5 weeks old, want to get it there. Haven’t measured yet, expecting about 3" for now. If I set the root depth to 3" I get too shallow waterings, using MP rotators.
Yeah, so each day it was supposed to water, I water myself using quick runs and then empty the zones again. Today I had to water it again as the blades are folding and the grass is wilting in the extreme sun, just haven’t yet emptied the zones - I do that every day I manually water. So this morning it was saying rain starts at 1pm. It now says 4pm, give it another hour, it will move back. Same story every day, no rain, just an ever moving prediction. On Wednesday evening I emptied the zones, had next watering happening Thu morning for all 5 zones, yay. Woke up in the morning, only the last two got watered, the first three were magically skipped. That’s because the early morning ones saw sufficient rain prediction, and as the time passed, that prediction moved back and eventually allowed the last two schedules to go on. Will see how it goes with a single schedule, assuming it will all be skipped if enough rain is expected at the 1am check. See, it checks early in the day, so it has a high chance of getting a high rain prediction. It currently says it will rain 0.87" today with a 70% chance. Yet still moving back every hour, so meh… But that .87" is high enough to not water anything for a few days, like I said, I get why Rachio does not water. It’s just that subsequent such decisions are a recipe to disaster, since it keeps “thinking” it will rain, but it never does, but Rachio is only forward looking, not backward looking to see the grass was not actually watered for a long time, irrigation or precipitation combined. I think there’s room to improve the algo.
post by ady624 on Jun 7, 2024
When it rains, it pours… the dry spell ended with a monster 1.5” in the last hour, still raining. Since I emptied the zones, I expect rachio would want to water tomorrow, unless rain prediction for tomorrow is high. I believe the empty forces today’s end balance to 0.
post by Fl-user on Jun 7, 2024
Since it is new sod and really only about 3 inch root depth, I think going to 6 is too far in this short term. I’d try 4, wait a month or so and got to 5 and a month or so later go to 6. You want to train the roots to go deeper and not stress the plant in getting there.
post by ady624 on Jun 7, 2024
Fair enough, switching to 4” until July 1st, then 5” until Aug 1st.
Meanwhile zones show 0%, Rachio says it will water tonight starting 2:32am (not needed) so I set an alarm for 2am to see where it is at then. Current prediction for tomorrow is 0.10” @ 30%
Thank you for going through this with me
post by ady624 on Jun 7, 2024
Switching to 4” made the tomorrow scheduled watering go away. Next planned date looks like never LOL, Jun 23rd. Zones at 0%.
\ IMG_22461290×2796 867 KB](https://community.rachio.com/uploads/db1097/original/2X/d/d7c3d5fc55f992614ac0be8724d59c06de652117.jpeg "IMG_2246")
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\ IMG_22481290×2796 197 KB](https://community.rachio.com/uploads/db1097/original/2X/4/4bdcf1fb8fea32b69266f5e904a75f5af186fe9a.png "IMG_2248")
post by Fl-user on Jun 7, 2024
Lets see what it does over the next few days.
post by ady624 on Jun 8, 2024
No watering this morning based on expected 0.49” precipitaiton. Zero so far.
\ IMG_22641290×2796 104 KB](https://community.rachio.com/uploads/db1097/original/2X/8/85df5779ff109bc043ada36246048da2c1fb661c.png "IMG_2264")
Also, side note, yesterday’s precipitation was 1.59”, not sure where the 0.89” is coming from NC Rain from Tempest is 1.23”, local is 1.59”.
\ IMG_22651290×2796 247 KB](https://community.rachio.com/uploads/db1097/original/2X/1/1ef5d694400f381d7dd3ed511b5deb767f27bc0d.png "IMG_2265")
post by Fl-user on Jun 8, 2024
1
I’ve seen a chart like the first one in your post above but I can’t find it for my info. Where is it? EDIT: Found it under soil moisture.
My app predicted 10% chance of rain today but still watered. It predicts 10% chance tomorrow and still is flagged to water tomorrow. We’ll see if that still happens. Still predicts rain at 10 - 70% until the 19th. Shows 40% chance on the 19th and has the raindrop indicating it will water.
post by Gerardv514 on Jun 8, 2024
I find it odd that rain is being reported as avg .50 something per day. That’s a lot of rain.
For me, even if I get a little rain it won’t fill up completely the capacity (or bucket ) of the zone thus the schedule will still run.
Is it me or does it appear that your rain measurements are twice the amount of capacity (or bucket) a zone needs and is the reason why the zone isn’t kicking off and triggering?
Weather is different in all parts of the world sure, and I’m unfamiliar with your location but it just seems odd for that much rain predicated everyday. Usually I would see fluctuations like .05 to .20 on a decent thunderstorm . Even at .20 every once in a while for me is drastically different for you at .50 something everyday. That’s more than double of a thunderstorm for me and would have to happen every day.
post by Gerardv514 on Jun 8, 2024
Can you post screenshots of one of the trouble zones settings and advanced settings?
post by Fl-user on Jun 8, 2024
That 0.49 inches of rain today (6/8) should be measured. Forecasting starts tomorrow and is expected to be 0.32.
Is your Tempest getting wet from a neighbors watering?
post by Gerardv514 on Jun 8, 2024
This is because the amount of water from rain still isn’t enough to fill the bucket so irrigation triggers to supplement and help fill.
Which is why I think the other user maybe having issues. There’s something off with a setting calculation. We need to increase the amount of water the zone needs, since it thinks it’s getting about a half inch of water every day from rain, and since that’s probably double the capacity it needs to begin with it’s seen as too much water.
Best way to figure what number is max capacity is look on soil moisture graph for a day where your at 110% for me it’s at .4 I’m at max field capacity 110%.
Using my max field capacity you could see how rain predications of every day at .5 would cause the problem. Then when the system realizes it didn’t water and it’s an empty bucket it’s looking ahead at the next prediction showing .5. My irrigation puts down .36 during each full scheduled run. As mentioned most of our rain predictions are not even .1 for those storms where there’s a low chance of actually falling.
Now if a rain storm actually comes thru, a decent one, I tend to see about .23 of rain which fills that bucket and possibly wont irrigate until a day or so after.
Here’s an example of my irrigation number and some rain we’ve been getting.
\ IMG_46421179×2556 96.3 KB](https://community.rachio.com/uploads/db1097/original/2X/1/149fc9162d5cde3af6c8dff0b7d26573025d6884.jpeg "IMG_4642")
\ IMG_46431179×2556 94.9 KB](https://community.rachio.com/uploads/db1097/original/2X/a/a2a7439805fe1a8dfd781ad37e0c3c839ce1aa09.jpeg "IMG_4643")
post by Gerardv514 on Jun 8, 2024
1
Also doesn’t Tempest report actual rain collected vs predication?
Confirmed my assumption with a quick google search, that it doesn’t predict.
Is sleepy brook way the name of the tempest station?
post by ady624 on Jun 8, 2024
Fl-user](https://community.rachio.com/t/weather-forecast-lying-means-dead-grass/39639 "Load parent post")
Click on a zone, click on the moisture % and click on MORE DETAIL.
The chance of rain is one thing, but click on the calendar day in the main window to see how much rain is predicted for each day, or see the More Detail page, it shows predicted amounts for future days. Current day I did not yet figure out, I think max of actual and predicted.
post by Fl-user on Jun 8, 2024
1
My 110% capacity is 0.33. I can’t go back more than 4 days in the chart section. How did you go back and get April data?
I’m not sure about his Tempest but my Davis Vantage Pro 2 reports actual rain collected and has a forecast % and amount. However, Rachio has 0 in for 6/9 and 0.02 in for 6/10 while the Davis prediction is 0 inches for both days. Davis uses a weather service for its predictions but I’m not sure which one.
Where does Rachio get its predictions?
EDIT I just checked Rachio daily predictions against my Davis 7 day forecast and they don’t match % or predicted amount. So Rachio is getting its predictions from somewhere else and not my weather station.
post by ady624 on Jun 8, 2024
Fl-user](https://community.rachio.com/t/weather-forecast-lying-means-dead-grass/39639 "Load parent post")
That is still the forecast, it will change by the end of today to reflect actual. Tempest is on top of my house, some 16ft off the ground. It reports 0.00” rain today. I believe today’s display value is max(actual, predicted). Tomorrow’s is pure predicted.
post by ady624 on Jun 8, 2024
Gerardv514](https://community.rachio.com/t/weather-forecast-lying-means-dead-grass/39639 "Load parent post")
That is the name, yes. I don’t have amount predictions in the Tempest app - it is possible that Rachio sources those from elsewhere, or it is a feature of the Rachio-Tempest integration?
post by Gerardv514 on Jun 8, 2024
You have to do it on the previous screen. Two little arrows on left and right of that previous screen.
post by Gerardv514 on Jun 8, 2024
ady624](https://community.rachio.com/t/weather-forecast-lying-means-dead-grass/39639 "Load parent post")
That I’m not sure of
post by ady624 on Jun 8, 2024
Gerardv514](https://community.rachio.com/t/weather-forecast-lying-means-dead-grass/39639 "Load parent post")
Alright, so yes, I get high amount predictions every day (both in the Rachio app and the Apple Weather app). Every day. And every day, it does not happen (except yesterday, we had 1.59” of rain yesterday for the first time in almost three months). The prediction forces Rachio to skip watering, but the rain never comes. Repeat that a few days and you get wilting grass due to high sun. This is the predicate of the thread: Rachio should not allow the zone to end the day at 0 too many days in a row, even if predictions say it will rain. I start the day with end balance 110% every day but end up with end balance 0% every day. At some point, Rachio should think it should ignore the prediction and water regardless.
post by ady624 on Jun 8, 2024
Last week had rain predicted every day, yet it never rained. Rachio never wanted to water because of the predictions. It’s an edge case, for sure. I just happened to stumble upon it, where predictions are far off many days in a row. Rachio currently plans to water next on June 20th
post by Gerardv514 on Jun 8, 2024
How long have you had a Rachio?
How long have you had tempest?
Was this always an issue since day 1 or has something changed?
post by ady624 on Jun 8, 2024
Rachio use for a couple months, Tempest user for over 6 months. This problem showed itself last week when rain started being predicted. Here are the current rain prediction for the next 7 days by Apple Weather (unrelated to Rachio/Tempest)
\ IMG_22661290×2796 278 KB](https://community.rachio.com/uploads/db1097/original/2X/6/62e146c46b2a6252a15201c75dd88ac4cb9b1ef4.jpeg "IMG_2266")
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\ IMG_22701290×2796 271 KB](https://community.rachio.com/uploads/db1097/original/2X/f/f70806e7b0398530c74eb534dc1e46a05e71556c.png "IMG_2270")
This false prediction never happened before to my knowledge. It’s been almost 10 days of this rain/no rain game.
post by ady624 on Jun 8, 2024
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post by Gerardv514 on Jun 8, 2024
In apple weather change the cloud drop down to precipitation. What is the hour by hour look like
post by ady624 on Jun 8, 2024
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Watering should happen in the early morning, so late in the day predictions will do that to Rachio.
post by ady624 on Jun 8, 2024
To reiterate, this is possibly a once in a lifetime event - I have never ever seen so many consecutive rain predictions go south. It may or may not happen in the future, or in other places. The high predicted amount during the early hours when Rachio decides whether my before-sunrise-schedule should run or not, make Rachio skip the watering. Then later in the day, the prediction amount starts decreasing, eventually reaching zero, with no rain actually happening. Then repeat - in reality, the time rain was supposed to start kept being pushed back, as if the cloud slowed down. 10 days in a row… Every morning, rain expected at, say, 1pm, only to be pushed back to, say, 8pm throughout the day, then completely disappear and move to 1pm tomorrow. Hours are approximate, they weren’t the same each day.
I see two ways Rachio can improve this. The numbers are purely arbitrary, no math behind them, someone should math if either way is to be implemented
a) the reactive way: include past end balance into the mix:
- if previous day does not end in 0% balance, use full predicted amount
- if only previous day ended in 0% balance, use 50% of the predicted amount
- if only last two days ended in 0% balance, use 25% of the predicted amount
- if three or more previous days ended in 0% balance, ignore the predicted amount, assume no rain, do your job, water that lawn
b) the proactive way: consider using the precipitation chance as well as the amount:
- if precipitation chance is less or equal to 30%, use 25% of the predicted amount
- if precipitation chance is between 30 and 50, use 50% of the predicted amount
- if precipitation chance is over 50, use full predicted amount
I think the reactive way is perhaps better as it has the least amount of impact for scenarios outside of this weird one.
post by Fl-user on Jun 11, 2024
I may be in the same situation as the OP. Rachio had my soil moisture in the 80’s yesterday with a 70% chance of rain and 0.74 in. We haven’t gotten any rain yet and Rachio says soil moisture is 110%. We could get some rain later today. Weatherbug has us at 40 - 55 chance today with 30 - 80% chance of storms/rain for the next 10 days.
post by ady624 on Jun 11, 2024
Yeah this is a very corner case, where you need predictions that never come true and you need that to repeat several consecutive days. I doubt a well established lawn will die, a little stressed, but since I have newly laid sod, the lack of watering was much more visible immediately. It takes many factors to come together
post by LarryJ on Jun 11, 2024
Dude,
Give up on the smart watering and just use a fixed schedule that you update as needed. You’ll go crazy otherwise. I did.
post by ady624 on Jun 11, 2024
Maybe we should stop… No! We do not quit! Again!
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/a35c240e-74f9-432e-ba5a-04c55519fb73
post by Fl-user on Jun 11, 2024
Rachio’s weather for today had 70% chance with an amount of 1.05 in. We actually got 0.21 inches and it looks (by radar) like no more is coming today.
My next run is scheduled for the 19th.
post by ady624 on Jun 11, 2024
4.52” so far today and Rachio just decided to go offline. Who’s going in the rain to troubleshoot wifi?
post by ady624 on Jun 11, 2024
Fl-user](https://community.rachio.com/t/weather-forecast-lying-means-dead-grass/39639 "Load parent post")
Next watering for me is Jun 24th, but I do have a solid 10 day rain forecast, so there’s that.
post by Gerardv514 on Jun 11, 2024
I live up north so probably not as hot as where you’re at, I’m looking on average every other day of watering.
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post by ady624 on Jun 11, 2024
This only happens if you get rain forecasted but it never rains, day after day. My next watering is June 24th because the forecast looks hellish with flooding rain - a low pressure tropical system formed in the gulf of Mexico, moving over South Florida this whole week. This time around, it WILL rain, 4.61” today and still going. Last week the forecast said rain but no rain ever came, so Rachio did its thing and kept skipping watering, as designed. The issue was the “no actual rain” part. By the time the rain forecast for “today” dissipated, Rachio had already skipped watering, and the story repeats the next day. Now I have too much water, anyone want some?
post by Gerardv514 on Jun 11, 2024
True I know what you’re saying. I still think there maybe a setting you can tweak to maybe balance it out.
I have a 40% chance of rain on Friday, showing .35” of total rainfall and Rachio is showing that it will irrigate that day.
It would be nice to get someone at Rachio’s take on this. @dane
Maybe just turn off weather intelligence and just use a physical rain sensor of how much water is collected.
post by ady624 on Jun 11, 2024
I don’t expect this to be a problem in the long run, I have never experienced so many days of bad forecast, plus this lawn is not going to be new forever
post by Gerardv514 on Jun 11, 2024
To be honest what you were proposing , which is that Rachio should factor in the chance of precipitation percentage I could see that maybe work for you, but then may break all other customers.
As an example my forecast shows rain ever day with a 10% chance of rain, but it in fact rains every day, I wouldn’t want my irrigation to go off as that would be too much water.
Not sure if there is anything clever to come up with for this. Although I think maybe adding in a 2nd run time into the schedule may help. The 2nd run time will run at some time in the later part of the day and will only run if the 1st one was skipped due to forecast. Throughout the day forecast changed and rain didn’t occur, then 2nd start of on the schedule should kick off.
Even though watering late in the day or at night isn’t ideal this would only occur for those extreme forecasted weather abnormalities.
post by ady624 on Jun 11, 2024
I agree, which is why I mentioned that the reactive way is probably better for this exact reason, impact. Forecast is maybe, but past should be true data. If moisture ultimately remained 0% for a few days, do water. This would have a much lesser impact on existing users.
Anyone welcome to brainstorm other ideas
post by Fl-user on Jun 11, 2024
Your proposal for watering later in the day wouldn’t work for me as we have restrictions that we can’t water between 8 AM and 6 PM.
post by dane on Jun 14, 2024
Gerardv514](https://community.rachio.com/t/weather-forecast-lying-means-dead-grass/39639 "Load parent post")
Hey there,
After reading through the thread this does sound like a perfect storm of issues resulting in a watering getting pushed back. Flex Daily was designed for established plants and not new seed/sod I have not looked into your settings or watering history @ady624 (I can if you would like me to) but the three day/week restriction that you have might play into it. Even if you do have false forecasts every single day, after a couple days a watering will trigger if the schedule is allowed to water each day. But, I can see my analysis here being invalid if each day’s forecasted is showing very large amounts of precipitation in inches of rain where the precipitation amount would take the moisture level above field capacity. I do like the suggestion on new ways to handle different probability of precipitation values.
post by Fl-user on Jun 14, 2024
I do not have a restriction on days and have my schedule set to Any day for Flex Daily. I’m having the same issue. Each day predicted rain and it didn’t rain.
I did a quick run on the schedule yesterday to try to prevent the grass from dying further. The run started immediately which was around lunch time. Sure would be nice to be able to tell it either now or tomorrow where it would override any predictions/rainfall and start to function like the schedule was created. In my case that would have end before sunrise. Then my watering would have been better as opposed to during the heat of the day.
post by ady624 on Jun 14, 2024
dane](https://community.rachio.com/t/weather-forecast-lying-means-dead-grass/39639 "Load parent post")
tried with only allowed days, with all days, the logic just isn’t there to prevent no watering. Everything works against it, very early prediction check and decision making, allowing forecast to be less accurate, low rain chance, Florida, me I have never seen 10 days in a row of predicted rain with no actual rain, was waiting for rain since March. It may never happen again to me, but I sure made a believer out of @Fl-user - in fact I might have quietly passed the problem to him in central Florida
post by Fl-user on Jun 14, 2024
1
Thanks for passing the problem.
post by ady624 on Jun 14, 2024
@Fl-user of course, any time
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