Ambient Weather Chill Hours Calculator

A command line tool to fetch data from Ambient Weather stations and calculate chill hours for agricultural purposes.

Installation

From npm

# Install globally
npm install -g ambient-chill-hours

# Or locally in a project
npm install ambient-chill-hours

From source

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/ambient-chill-hours.git
cd ambient-chill-hours

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build the project
npm run build

# Link the package globally (optional)
npm link

Configuration

You'll need an Ambient Weather API key to use this tool. You can get one by signing up at https://ambientweather.net/.

Configure the tool with your API key:

ambient-chill-hours config --api-key YOUR_API_KEY

Additional configuration options:

• --app-key: Your Ambient Weather application key (optional)
• --default-station: Default weather station MAC address (so you don't need to specify it each time)
• --season-start: Month to start the chill hour season (1-12, default: 9 for September)
• --min-temp: Minimum temperature for chill hour calculation in °F (default: 32)
• --max-temp: Maximum temperature for chill hour calculation in °F (default: 45)
• --rate-limit-delay: Delay between API calls in milliseconds (default: 1000)

Rate Limiting

The Ambient Weather API has rate limits on how many requests you can make in a given time period. If you encounter "rate limit exceeded" errors when fetching data for a full season, you can adjust the delay between API calls by using the --rate-limit-delay option:

# Increase delay to 5 seconds between API calls
ambient-chill-hours config --rate-limit-delay 5000

You can also set this in your .env file with AMBIENT_RATE_LIMIT_DELAY=5000.

Usage

List Available Weather Stations

ambient-chill-hours devices

Calculate Chill Hours

For the last 7 days:

# If you've set a default station
ambient-chill-hours chill

# Or specify a station
ambient-chill-hours chill --mac YOUR_STATION_MAC_ADDRESS

For a specific number of days:

ambient-chill-hours chill --days 14

For the entire season (based on configured season start):

ambient-chill-hours chill --season

For a specific year's season:

ambient-chill-hours chill --season --year 2023

What are Chill Hours?

Chill hours are a measurement used in agriculture, particularly for fruit trees and some other perennial plants. They represent the number of hours during the dormant season when temperatures are within a specific range (typically between 32°F and 45°F). Many fruit trees require a certain number of chill hours to produce properly in the following growing season.

License

MIT