#176 - Let's Go Out To Dinner And See a Forecast

[00:00:50] Welcome back to The Sprinkler Nerd Show. I'm your host, Andy Humphrey. This is episode Friday, the 17th of January. So I learned something new this week. Imagine that. I actually probably learned many things new this week. But when I thought about what I would like to share with you, one thing stood out to me. So I'd like to like to share that. It's, it's a simple, it's actually a simple concept, generally speaking, that is very real.

[00:01:20] Very relatable for anyone in the irrigation or landscaping or green industry. Very relatable, very simple. But yet, the complexity of it under the hood is what I learned about and actually changed my mind about what I knew based on what I learned. Sounds confusing, but just, I changed my mind because I was naive to this concept. And I guess I just made some assumptions on how this concept worked without actually knowing how it worked. So I'm going to share that.

[00:01:51] With you. And it's possible that perhaps you already know this. And this was only new knowledge for me. But regardless, I'm sure that this will be new information for at least one of you out there in podcast land.

[00:02:08] But before I jump into that, I'd like to explain that funky intro song that may be stuck in your head for the rest of your life. Let's go out to dinner and see a movie. The next time you're going out to dinner, and you're going to see a movie, you're going to think of that song.

[00:02:25] It's actually a song by Fish that can get stuck in your head. But it came into my head. And the reason I put it as the intro is because I had an interesting thought this week. And before I share that thought with you, which isn't really about technology, it's more just about sort of mindset and personal development for myself and for all of you guys listening, you can take it or leave it.

[00:02:52] So before I do that, I'm going to just play this secondary quote here for you right now. I was heading for the fantastic lights, he writes. Destiny was looking right at me and nobody else. Use the word destiny over and over throughout the book. What does that mean to you? It's a feeling you have that you know something about yourself nobody else does. The picture you have in your mind of what you're about will come true.

[00:03:21] It's kind of a thing you kind of have to keep to your own self because it's a fragile feeling and you put it out there, somebody will kill it. So it's best to keep that all inside. So my first question is, could you tell who was being interviewed? It was a quote from a 2004 60 Minutes episode with Ed Bradley. Ed Bradley was hosting the interview and his guest had that amazing quote. So do you know who that was? It was Bob Dylan.

[00:03:51] And I like how Bob Dylan sort of talked about destiny as just kind of being this fragile, deeply personal feeling. He says, a picture of yourself that only you can truly see. The picture you have in your mind of what you're about, what will come true. But he thinks that you kind of sometimes have to keep it to yourself because it's fragile.

[00:04:17] And if you put it out there, someone will try to kill it or they might kill it. And there's probably some truth to that, certainly truth through the lens of Bob Dylan. But I felt like the quote resonated with me because especially when I think about the trades and you all out there in podcast land working in the trades like irrigation and landscaping, even construction.

[00:04:45] I know there's some of you that listen to this podcast that aren't in irrigation or landscaping, but none of the trades fields are particularly glamorous. And I think that oftentimes they're overlooked and very often underappreciated. I think that especially landscape landscapes and landscape irrigation are undervalued. We like to think our landscapes have value.

[00:05:10] But when you put money in front of someone, yeah, they may choose to buy the new car, not the $50,000 renovation, if you know what I mean. So sometimes the value is talked about, but then when it comes to actually putting money on the table, it's undervalued, underappreciated. And many of you are overlooked in your job and what you do.

[00:05:32] But within every person working in all of these fields, you have a picture. You probably have a destiny, something you want to do, someone you want to become, somewhere you want to go, all of that that you can see. And it might feel strange or it might feel fragile. You might feel embarrassed to share.

[00:05:53] You might keep it within, especially because oftentimes we could be, you might be surrounded by negativity or even lack of recognition for what you do. People don't always see that amazing manifold that you put together perfectly. No one might see it. So you're not always recognized. But I think the trades are kind of like a canvas.

[00:06:18] Every trench you dig, every system you install, every repair you make is like a stroke of ink or paint on that canvas. And your destiny isn't dictated by the job title that you have, your paycheck, et cetera. It's only created by your vision, your craftsmanship, and your belief in the picture you hold within. So this brings me back to the intro.

[00:06:47] It brings me back to the moment I had this week with my 19-year-old daughter, Phoebe. Tonight, it's Friday night. Tonight, I'm going to take her to see the new Bob Dylan movie. That's why I played the intro. I'm going to take her to see the movie. We're going to go out to dinner. We're going to go to the movie.

[00:07:06] And for those of you listening that didn't know there was a new Bob Dylan movie, it's a biographical drama, not a series, movie that just kind of talks about Dylan's – how Dylan became Dylan. How he sort of like broke free from expectations, went on this journey, you know, this journey to find his destiny. So when I asked Phoebe if she wanted to join me, she looked at me and was like, who's Bob Dylan? Who's that? I can't remember her words exactly.

[00:07:35] I think she just said, who's that? I couldn't help but laugh. It was one of those moments when I realized I was the older – I had become the older person. Sometimes you just think you're still the 26-year-old.

[00:07:51] But when she said, who's that, it was just one of those moments where I realized how the – I guess like the icons or the famous people from one generation can fade and then there's just like a mystery for the next generation. In my mind, I thought, man, Bob Dylan, he's like one of the most famous musicians of all time. How could you not know about him?

[00:08:14] So anyway, it was just kind of a very comical few minutes, which makes me even more excited to take her to the movie so she can learn about Bob Dylan. But I think it's going to be just kind of a motivational movie, a motivational time together so that she and I can kind of have this shared experience. And I think that that's – if you have kids, if they're young, just remember how awesome it is to spend time with your kids.

[00:08:41] Having experiences like going to a movie that's not some cartoon but that might have some deeper meaning that you can share with your children. That might mean something to you that might mean nothing to them, but you can expose them to what might be meaningful to you so they can learn a little bit about you and sort of have that – to build that bond together.

[00:09:05] So I think generally speaking, this idea ties into one of my themes for 2025, which as a reminder is the freedom to play in the sandbox. That's kind of the analogy that I want to use this year, the freedom to play in the sandbox.

[00:09:26] You can use that in whichever way that you want for your business, for your job, your family, where the sandbox is where we can experiment, where we can learn, and where we can share without fear or judgment with others. Okay? So you know what? If you're building your next valve manifold and you've always done it the same way, try something different. It really doesn't matter when anyone else thinks.

[00:09:57] As long as you think it isn't going to put the quality of work at risk or put the system at risk, et cetera, just try something new. Experiment. That's how you learn. And I think it's also where mistakes are made, but mistakes become – they become those lessons, and then the curiosity sort of like fuels that progress.

[00:10:21] So whether you're in the trades or you are an accountant in the trades or whatever line of business or work you're in, the sandbox is that space where you can try to experiment with new things so you can uncover your destiny. Okay? So as I started talking about destiny, maybe you thought you've never had a destiny. So start experimenting. Start trying things out. See if you can discover where your destiny is.

[00:10:49] So I encourage you to pick up new tools. Try new things, whether it's a new shovel. I don't know. A new wrench. A new controller. A new sensor. Step into the sandbox. Try new things. Take some risks and allow yourself the freedom to experiment. I think that every time you play in the sandbox, you get a little closer to, as Bob Dylan said, that fragile personal picture of destiny you hold within.

[00:11:20] All right. So let me transition to something that's a little bit more relevant to our industry, what we do, what you do on a daily basis, and what I learned this week. So this week I had a conversation with Stratos Theodoro. He is one of the founders of a – I guess there's still a startup company, but the company is called WeatherXM.

[00:11:43] And if you were – if you listened to the presentation that I gave with – gave for Chris Pine's Irrigation Tech Advanced – Irrigator Tech Advanced Learning Series, I used WeatherXM to help explain where Laura and Laura Wan fit into the IoT equation. And I will record one, if not many more episodes about WeatherXM another time.

[00:12:12] But in short, WeatherXM is developing what you might consider to be a hyper-local weather network using data from on-site physical weather stations. And these stations also connect to a blockchain, and you can earn cryptocurrency when you deploy a WeatherXM station. And just to kind of bring it home, this year I deployed two stations, again, as an experiment in my sandbox.

[00:12:40] I deployed two stations, one of which is across the street here at my office, is wireless. And I have made back roughly 80% of the money that it cost me to purchase the weather stations. So – and this – and I should say that the payback comes in the form of WXM cryptocurrency. It's a coin.

[00:13:06] It has value just like if you had Ethereum or if you had Bitcoin, XRP, which I did buy some more XRP this week. By the way. And so I expect that my ROI is going to be 12 to 14 months. When that would mean is that, let's say I spent $1,000 on the weather stations. 12 to 14 months later, I would have earned $1,000 that paid back the weather stations.

[00:13:33] So all of that is interesting in its own right, and I can't wait to talk more about that. And that's kind of like the – just the foundation to sort of why I had a conversation with Stratus. And so Stratus was doing a little bit of product market research. As one of the co-founders, he is in charge of the product. So during our conversation, Stratus asked me if forecasting data would have any value to me and to my business and to what we do. He was asking me about forecast data.

[00:14:02] And I was like, of course, absolutely, yes. Forecasting data is critical, especially the ability to forecast rainfall. But I was immediately confused how WeatherXM, how my station here, how could I use a local weather station for forecasting?

[00:14:26] In my mind, I thought, wouldn't I want to know about weather stations that are 500 miles away from me so I know what's coming versus my weather station here doesn't know what's coming because it only knows what is happening right now. And what's so interesting, he may have loaded up this question or maybe I'm just the naive one that didn't understand how a physical weather station could be used for forecasting.

[00:14:54] And this is what I wanted to share with you now that we're like 15 minutes into this episode. This is what I wanted to share with you. What I learned is that there are many, many weather models. And I guess I should have known that, but I never thought of it before because we get so used to looking at the weather app on our phone, whether it's the Apple weather app or it's the weather channel weather app. We get so used to hearing the weather on the radio.

[00:15:23] We get so used to seeing the weather on the news. But I had never stopped to wonder how that forecast is developed and is there more than one forecasting method? So it turns out this is one of weather XM's, one of the secret sauces that they are building to differentiate their business and provide new value to the market.

[00:15:49] And what I learned is that weather XM uses anywhere from, I think he said 15 to 20 different weather models. Okay. So, and as he was explaining this to me, I took a couple of notes. He uses, they use one model called Medeo Blue and you can Google these Medeo Blue. I just copied down a couple of notes from the Medeo.

[00:16:14] When I Google this Medeo Blue and Medeo Blue weather model essentially divides the world into small grid cells. And each cell is four to 40 kilometers wide and 100 meters to two kilometers high. So I guess that would be like a cylinder, you know, going straight up in the sky. And these models contain 60 vertical atmospheric layers and reach deep into the stratosphere.

[00:16:42] I also thought it's funny that his name is Stratos and he's the founder of Weather XM and we have the stratosphere. So it can reach deep into the stratosphere up to 60 kilometers, which corresponds to pressure of 10 to 25 HPA. The weather is simulated by solving complex mathematical equations between all grid cells. Every few seconds, the computed values of weather variables such as temperature, wind speed or cloudiness are stored every hour.

[00:17:11] So that's just a snippet about the Medeo Blue weather model. Then there was another weather model called IFS, which stands for Integrated Forecasting System. And this comprises a spectral atmospheric model with a terrain following vertical coordinate system coupled to a 4D VAR data assimilation system.

[00:17:36] In 1997, the IFS became the first operational forecast system to use 4D VAR. It is one of the predominant global medium range models in general use worldwide. All right. So I guess I'm just saying there's another, there is another model. I can't tell you why one is better than another or what one does differently than another. I'm just sort of trying to explain that there are different forecasting models that will output different forecasts. Okay. Then there's one called ICON.

[00:18:05] I don't know what it stands for, but it's a flexible, scalable, high-performance modeling framework for weather, climate, and environmental prediction that provides actionable information for society and advances our understanding of Earth's climate system. Whew. All right. Last one I took a note on is called GFS. GFS, and this stands for Global Forecast System.

[00:18:24] And I think this is one that we've probably seen more often because the Global Forecast System is run by the U.S. National Weather Service and is a weather forecast model that generates data for dozens of atmospheric and land soil variables, including temperature, wind, precipitation, soil moisture, atmospheric ozone, concentration. And this is a system.

[00:18:47] This is a system couple's four separate models, atmospheric, ocean, land, soil model, and sea ice that work together to accurately depict weather conditions. I don't know why I didn't know there was different weather models or how I just really never gave that much thought. Maybe I'm just super naive. Maybe I just never took the time to get into those sorts of details. So I wanted to, I guess, number one, let you know that there are lots of weather models.

[00:19:17] And second would be how a, and this is actually pretty freaking interesting, how a weather station here at my office or on your project or at your home, how you could, how weather XM can use that physical station. This is really, really fascinating and opening and eye opening, okay?

[00:19:39] Because let's say the U.S. National Weather Service that runs the Global Forecast System, all weather that is predicted by the U.S. National Weather Service will be using the GFS system, the Global Forecast System. And the same thing, if somebody is using the Medio Blue weather model, then you will only get Medio Blue results.

[00:20:03] So what weather XM is doing is using the data that comes out of the station, which is stored in their database in the cloud, all the data points. We have temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed, rainfall, all the data points, solar radiation.

[00:20:23] And they run every data point through every model such that perhaps temperature needs to be run through the Medio Blue model, but forecasted wind speed needs to be run through the Global Forecast System.

[00:20:48] So instead of relying solely on one model, every data point that comes into their system, they can run through all of the models and they can see which one has better accuracy.

[00:21:02] And based on that, they can essentially aggregate all of the data points to provide the most accurate forecast for your area based on that physical station because they have run all of the data points through all of the models. And I thought, wow, that is fascinating and unique.

[00:21:33] And it's almost like, I think I just said it a second ago, like being the aggregator of all the models, right? Instead of reinventing a model, they are reinventing the system to which they can determine which model is better for which data point.

[00:21:55] And it might be that, this is what he said, is it might be that you want one model for temperature if you want to know what it is going to be in a day. But you want a different model if you want to know what it is going to be in a week because they all have strengths and weaknesses because they're all just formulas or algorithms.

[00:22:16] And so it just kind of got me thinking about that and what the potential looks like for us. And as we think about us, meaning mostly landscape and agricultural irrigation, rainfall is, I think, probably the number one forecasting data point that we would want.

[00:22:43] Temperature could be, you know, perhaps wind speed, but rainfall for sure. And I guess based on what I learned, it might be in the future. Every project has a physical station or something like once the WeatherXM network is great enough, perhaps there is a WeatherXM station. Every one kilometer.

[00:23:13] And if that's the case, we could just use existing data. But before there are WeatherXM stations every, you know, one kilometer, we should be putting one on a property. And they're not that expensive. I want to say they're $400, totally wireless. Plus you can participate in the blockchain. And who knows where all this might go.

[00:23:33] But I just found it, to me, fascinating to learn that a physical station can be used to more accurately provide forecasting information. Didn't know it. Had no idea that was possible. I'd always thought that to forecast ahead, particularly in regards to rainfall, I would need to know, you know, if what it looks like 50 miles away, 100 miles away, 500 miles away, 1,000 miles away.

[00:24:02] So those storms can be tracked, right, as they move across the country. But you also need to know what it is on your site so that all those data points can be merged and mapped out to find which model best fits for forecasting an exact location. So that's what I have for you today. Give it some thought if you're interested. Check out WeatherXM.com.

[00:24:31] I do have an affiliate link somewhere. But anyway, I can't find it here at the moment. Maybe I can track it down and stick it in the show notes later. But yeah, a couple thoughts for you today. One about pursuing your own destiny, even for us in the trades that are often overlooked, undervalued, not appreciated.

[00:24:54] You have a destiny and can work towards it by, in my thought, playing in the sandbox, learning, experimenting, sharing, and growing. And just a short little story about taking my daughter to see the Bob Dylan movie. Can't wait to see it tonight. I hope it's good. And yeah, that's what I have for you this week. Thank you so much for listening.

[00:25:18] I have a bunch of guests, some of which I've already recorded, and some are lined up. So there's going to either be, in the future, solo episodes like this with thoughts from me, what's on Andy's mind this week, as well as fantastic interviews with industry professionals. So again, thank you for listening. Have a great weekend, a great week, a great month, wherever it is and whenever you're listening to this.

[00:25:46] Really appreciate you. And until the next episode, happy sprinkling. We'll see you then. Let's go out to dinner and see a movie. Let's go out to dinner and see a movie.