Temperature -vs- Elevation

Just back from a weekend riding on the Blue Ridge Parkway. So beautiful. My data field logs Live Weather Temp, Device Temp, and Elevation every 15 minutes so I can plot the graph below. Unlike flat Florida, Device Temp was more realistic, as the temperature varied dramatically as I climbed and descended between 2000 ft and 6000 ft. The general rule of thumb is about 3.5F for every 1000 ft (but that varies of course depending on many factors).

I've seen people refer to Open Weather. Is that what Garmin uses for its native Weather library?

Weather Underground would also suffer from not taking elevation change into account. But Device Temps suffer from sun exposure. Most users won't have a TEMPE sensor. So I'd like to improve on those flaws.

Does any Weather Service report the Station's Elevation? If so, I could at least apply a 3.5F offset as my actual elevation varies from the Station's elevation.

I've never implemented a Web Request. Any decent code examples that demonstrate how to grab Weather Underground temps? That would be interesting to compare to Garmin's WX data and Device Temps.

Thanks!!

jim_m_58 over 2 years ago

Garmin doesn't use OWM, and WU does provide the elevation of the weather station.

One thing to note with WU, is you need an APIkey to get data, and you can only get an API KEY if you have a weather station that sends data to Weather Underground. Anyone can get a APIkey for OWM.

DaveBrillhart over 2 years ago in reply to jim_m_58

Oh thanks! So if I get a home WX station I can get a key. Then I can embed my key into a data field that anyone can use? That could be worth it. I'm not sure OWM would be any better than Garmin's native Weather.

jim_m_58 over 2 years ago in reply to DaveBrillhart

With WU, there is a limit to the number of calls that can be made for a API Key, you hard coding your key probably won't work as the limit is only a few hundred a day.

DaveBrillhart over 2 years ago in reply to jim_m_58

ok makes sense. Probably would have to have an access code as a User Setting for just me. On a 24-hour race, even at every 5 minutes, I could run out of quota. station elevation and proximity to me would be nice data points.