RAWSmet data time offset

[Sillson]

I believe the RAWSmet package assumes data for WRCC stations is returned in UTC format, when it actually may be supplied as LST (local standard time). The data appears to have a reverse offset (-0700) for stations in the PNW.

Example station: Agness, Oregon
WRCC URL to validate data: WRCC Site (then select Daily Summary)

R Code to pull data for Agness:

library(MazamaSpatialUtils)
library(RAWSmet)
library(dplyr)
library(lubridate)

wrcc_meta <-
  wrcc_loadMeta(stateCode = "OR") %>%
  dplyr::filter(stateCode == "OR")

agness <- wrcc_loadYear(wrccID = "orOAGN",
                        meta = wrcc_meta,
                        year = lubridate::year(lubridate::today("PDT")),
                        password = "YOURPWD")

# View datetime:
tail(agness$data$datetime, n=1)

# Eyeball data vs. WRCC
tail(agness$data, n=5)

The datetime column of the agness$data tibble created assumes UTC. "2021-04-01 01:00:00 UTC", and when comparing with the values on the WRCC site, it appears the offset for the America/Los_Angeles timezone is being applied (-0700) to the already America/Los_Angeles timezone, which still wouldn't be UTC.

For example, at 9AM L.S.T., WRCC shows Fuel Moisture Mean Percent as 25.1 , and the RAWSMet package shows the same value with a datetime-stamp of 2021-04-01 01:00:00 UTC. I would expect this value to be 2021-04-01 16:00:00 UTC -- right?

Perhaps I'm missing something, but it seems there is a negative offset being placed on the datetime column.

[jonathancallahan]

The following code exists in wrcc_createTimeseriesObject.R

  # * Convert datetime to UTC ----

  UTC_offset <-
    MazamaSpatialUtils::SimpleTimezones@data %>%
    dplyr::filter(.data$timezone == meta$timezone) %>%
    dplyr::pull("UTC_offset")
  
  # NOTE:  The 'datetime' column is "local standard time all-year-round" for
  # NOTE:  which no timezone exists. So we have to convert it first to UTC
  # NOTE:  and then shift it by the UTC offset.
  
  UTC_time <-
    MazamaCoreUtils::parseDatetime(data$datetime, timezone = "UTC") +
    lubridate::dhours(UTC_offset)
  
  data$datetime <- UTC_time

I wonder if The AGNESS station reports in UTC rather than LST?

[Sillson]

I believe this issue has been resolved with the latest release.

Thank you @jonathancallahan !