Automatic alti/baro really needs attention

[nikshot]

@efejota Hello, and five days ago (Saturday) I had a terrible storm, with lightning, a hurricane that knocked down many large trees and caused great damage to many places across the country, in some places there were floods with destroyed crops, broken walls of houses, removed fences of yards, etc. The same day (before the storm started) my girl and I were high in the mountains (2500 m), planning to spend the night at this height in a tent! Although, my storm alarm is always on, I checked just in case because the weather forecast was for light rain! Until late afternoon we were hesitant to stay at 2500 meters for the night, relying on my Suunto 9 Baro Titanium that if something scary is asked it will inform me (as my Ambit 2 Sapphire used to do)! But my S9B does not react in any way! We stood on the roof of the mountain and watched in the distance as the black storm clouds set in, and my S9B seemed to have swallowed its tongue. I was wondering who to trust - my eyes or S9B. In the end, reason prevailed and we quickly moved out of the mountain as the storm hit us hard! When we were already traveling by car, the storm was in full swing. We crossed the whole country, as the storm was moving with us, it was scary, trees were falling on the road we were traveling on … The next day we saw the whole balance of the past storm on the news … I don’t think if I had trusted the alarm of my S9B and we were left at 2500 m in a tent, imagine what was there!

[Egika]

@nikshot @Efejota
comparing a storm event with the watch triggering an alarm does not help.
Can you please share the pressure information for the specific location and time, to see if the conditions where so, that the watch could detect it…
The watch is no weather station, the only information it has, is the barometric pressure.

Cheers

[nikshot]

@egikaI can only show this photo which was taken on the same day at noon, when the weather was beautiful and there was no sign of what would happen a few hours later, but here I notice that the pressure has changed dramatically by 8 points (1020 hPa- 1028xPa) without the alarm responding!?!

[isazi]

@nikshot well, it increased, the alarm is for a sharp decrease

[nikshot]

@isaziI’m sorry I didn’t check the pressure value a few hours later when this happened, do you think it happened without a change in pressure?
Before (A photo I took around noon ) :

After (The video is not mine) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If5WCGxtkIM

[isazi]

@nikshot I’m just saying you showed a pic that does not mean anything. You show the pressure going up, and complain you didn’t get an alarm. It’s like saying you press up on the elevator and complain you didn’t get to the ground floor. Go on the internet, look for the pressure at weather stations close to where you were, and measure the drop.

[nikshot]

@isazi See this now a few hours later (video is not mine): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If5WCGxtkIM

[nikshot]

@isazi Or this::
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfqNnn5R6Rk

[isazi]

@nikshot I don’t doubt there was a storm, I can read newspapers. I’m just telling you that I have no idea why you didn’t get a storm alarm (I get them for major storms), but that if you want to know why you need to check the data of weather stations in the area and measure the drop. Not YouTube, that’s not a weather station

[Egika]

@nikshot like in the screenshot from desertkie20 here in this thread.
There no big pressure drop was to be measured, still a storm went through. Nothing a watch could do here.

[surfboomerang]

@nikshot If altitude is calibrated by FusedAlti or manual it can also cause this jump in pressure. In this case the alarm won’t be triggered.

[nikshot]

@surfboomerangIt is not touched

[matteo_000]

For my experience you can not based only with “storm alarm” functionality. It more important to read the baro/pressure information about the evolution of last 24h.

For this I would like to see the baro graph evolution for the last 24h (like in the old Suunto Core) and not only 12h like now.

So also the arrow indicators in the baro clock face, it not help because for me it’s too much sensitive.

I hope in future feature release…

[nikshot]

@isaziInterestingly, at many stations the archives show a rise in pressure around the storm, for me, these data are not accurate because they do not correspond to the Apocalypse that has passed. is one of them:

[isazi]

@nikshot well, if a barometer was all you needed to predict weather, we would not need to spend billions for weather forecasts.
Pressure trend is fine, it work at times, but it’s just one variable.

[sartoric]

@nikshot said in Automatic alti/baro really needs attention:

many stations the archives show a rise in pressure around the storm

So, what do you expect a watch’s barometer could do if even weather stations didn’t get the drop in pressure ?

[surfboomerang]

@nikshot said in Automatic alti/baro really needs attention:

@surfboomerangIt is not touched

The watch does this automatically in the background during an activity. Did you save the activity? If so, do you see an altitude change at the same point as the pressure spike in your photo?

[Efejota]

@egika I just simply pointed out a fact that I observed several times. Storm alarm triggered more often in my Ambit 3. Anyway, there is an airport very close, I guess that METAR data would be available for June 17th, any hint where could I find that to share? Just curious.

J

[Efejota]

OK. I managed to find the historical METAR data for Madrid. They were not available for the closest METAR station. As the storm episode was very similar in Barajas, I guess that those data work to understand what happened.

It seems that it did not come with a significant descent in air pressure, that remained more or less the same for the whole day (see pic attached). That would explain why the storm alarm never triggered, despite the huge storm with wind and ice that hit my place.

My question now is how usual it is for storms to come without pressure drop. That would help me to understand how often the watch would warn me. For instance, in typical summer storms, do they come with pressure drop or not? That would be the scenario where the alarm is more helpful.

On the other hand. I learnt a lot in this thread. Thanks to everybody and @Egika and @isazi in particular.

J

[Dimitrios Kanellopoulos]

@efejota I can answer this.

Depends on the area.

At NL each storm has so fast pressure change that I get altitude changes.

At FR (midi Pyrenees) yes. Almost all storms would trigger the alarm.

At GR at the seal level (beach vacation) the pressure would trigger the alarm.

Not all storms bring a pressure chnage and some storms even raise the pressure when you are just under.