Import WeatherLink WLK files into Cumulus MX
The ImportWLK utility is a command line program written in .NET, so it will run on Windows or Linux. Under Linux you will have to use the dotnet runtime environment to execute the program.
The utility will read your Weatherlink log files and your dayfile.txt (if it exists). It will then compare the data:
- If a day is missing from your dayfile, but present in your monthly logs, it will create a new dayfile record for you.
- If a day has missing data - it may have been created with a old version of Cumulus - then if the WLK file contains the relevant data it will add those missing bits to the existing day record.
Just copy all the files in the release zip file to your Cumulus MX root folder.
Create a folder called wlk in your root Cumulus MX folder
Copy all your WLK files from your WeatherLink installation into the new wlk folder
ImportWLK has to be told the first date when you expect data to be available. To do this it reads the "Records Began Date" from your Cumulus.ini file.
By default this is set to the first time you run Cumulus MX.
If you have imported old data from another program, or another installation of Cumulus (and you have used the original Cumulus.ini file), then you will have to change the date in Cumulus MX to set it to the earlist date in your imported data.
You can edit the Records Began Date in Cumulus MX:
Settings > Station Settings > General Settings > Advanced
Alternatively (not recommended), you can edit the Cumulus.ini file directly. You must edit the Cumulus.ini file with Cumulus MX STOPPED.
The entry in Cumulus.ini can be found in the [Station] section of the file...
[Station]
StartDateIso=YYYY-MM-DDNOTE: You must retain the same date format.
However, if ImportWLK finds that the first date in your WLK files is earlier than the Records Began Date, it will use that date instead.
ImportWLK also uses your Cumulus.ini file to determine things like what units you use for your measurements. So make sure you have all this configured correctly in Cumulus MX before importing data.
Note: The units used in Cumulus MX may be different from the units in the files you are importing, the units will be converted.
Just run the ImportWLK.exe from your root Cumulus MX folder
ImportWLK.exe
Run via the dotnet executable after first setting the path to the Cumulus MX root folder
dotnet ImportWLK.dll
After running the ImportWLK convertor, you will need to perform some additional tasks to complete the migration:
The ImportWLK utility adds most of the data to your day file when it creates the monthly log files. However some data is complex to derive and it is left to the CreateMissing utility to fill in these final bits.
You can find the CreateMissing documentation online here: https://github.com/cumulusmx/CreateMissing
There is no automatic way of updating the records in Cumulus MX. You will have to use the various records editors to manually update them. Load each records screen, and you can click record values and times from either the day file or the monthy log files and they will replace the current values.
Not having an automatic means of doing this is probably a good thing as it allows you to disregard (and possibly correct) silly values that may have crept into the day file and log files. If you have records from some previous software refer to those as well, as some transient values may have been recorded that are missing from the imported log files.