So I just setup my tempest weatherflow station and have both official integrations (weatherflow and weatherflow cloud). The weatherflow integration (purely local) shows lightning strikes all the time (it’s clear, bright and sunny day). The weatherflow cloud integration and the tempest app (even the sensor page of the tempest app) are showing zero lightning strikes. I’ve looked up all the data available from the tempest app, including the station data, and there are absolutely no lightning strikes. How do I go about finding out why/how the weatherflow integration keeps showing lightning and how do I correct it?
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The WeatherFlow station’s local API (UDP) displays local data as observed, with no filtering or QC checks. The cloud APIs display filtered/QC-checked data, to remove things like false lightning strikes and bad rain measurements from mast vibrations and birds perching on the cap of the Tempest sensor.
It sounds like you have a lightning disturber nearby generating false strikes, such as an oil-fired furnace ignitor, electric motor, or even a shallow well pump.
If you want to dig deeper, there’s a “hidden” diagnostics screen on the Tempest station’s web site. Just click/tap on the green “online” status indicator on the bottom of the screen, and it will bring up a screen that includes sensor status that should include detecting a lightning disturber nearby:
Ah, thank you guys. I did not know that the lightning data was filtered, and that the local pull of lightning data (through the integration) is not filtered. It makes sense to me. I guess the filtering happens in the cloud and not the hub then?
As far as the diagnostic info (thank you for the link), mine has no data relating to lightning (or disturbers) visible. Taking a stab in the dark, I’m wondering if solar panel arrays could trigger these false readings? I have panels as do most the homes around me, have no placement options to get around this.
Thank you for chiming in. I just won’t expose the local lightning data for anything as it’s so corrupted.
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Absolutely could be the reason for false strikes. Ham radio operators are constantly complaining about neighbors putting up solar panels and interfering with their low-frequency HF reception, which is similar to the principle that the AS3935 lightning chip in most consumer electronics uses…
Is there a good way to silence this event? When I look at “Activity” in HA, all I see is this event since it happens every 10 seconds. I have looked on the web site and I see no lightning disturbers.
I assume that you are using HA’s WeatherFlow integration that listens for local UDP network broadcasts, and not the HACS “WeatherFlow Forecast” integration that uses the WF-T cloud to retrieve data. The local UDP data is unfiltered, whereas the WF-T cloud data is filtered by their smart weather algorithms and also has the ability to send notices for strikes that your station may have missed.
My suggestion is to use the HACS cloud integration:
Ahhh, I see. I always prefer local integrations over cloud integrations so naturally I chose that one. Thanks for the suggestion. If I want to continue using the local version, is there a way to filter the UDP data in the local integration so it does not fill the Activity section of HA?