Rain Gauge

[geoffw]

I remain suspicious of the readings from my rain gauge. Friday, for example, while I was mowing the lawn in the sunshine my rain guage recorded a phantom heavy shower..........

I read on Cumulus that the gauge is prone to phantom reading if wobbled or knocked, and at one point during the mowing I did clout the post it is attached to with the mower- so it could be that. Furthermore it is attached to a clothes line post so it must flex when there is a lot of washing on the line. I'm going to keep an eye on this.

Possible re-site the whole.

But in the meantime I have bought a cheap rain guage from Betterware http://www.betterware.co.uk/productdeta ... uage=en-GBto compare daily readings.

[steve]

I suspect that as well as the problem of actual bucket tips when knocked or blown in the wind, these stations have to tendency for their rain counter to suddenly increase even without the gauge being knocked or otherwise disturbed; some sort of electrical interference or whatever. I've had this with mine; on a calm, fine day when I know the gauge hadn't been disturbed, the rain counter suddenly jumped up, and stayed up, so not a temporary glitch in the data transmission.

[apenwith]

Hi
Mine added 16000 clicks - 5000 odd mm of raim at one time - and that can't be wind or movement. I've also had the humidity sensor stuck at 99% for some time so I wonder if damp is causing errors. And the dcf clock has stopped reception. With other things I want to do (the (in)famous sunshine recorder may it's time to take everything down and give it a thorough inspection.
I'll let you know.
Regards Alan

[wswat]

Hi Folks,
I also had a stack of false rain readings from the Fine Offset 1081 and even though I have it mounted up on a pole where it is susceptible to movement from the wind I had not experienced such a high reading of false rain. Anyway swung the pole down and pulled the lid off the rain gauge and after some time I discovered that the steel shaft for the rain bucket was not seated all the way in and the magnet side of rain bucket was able to flop around. So was easy to reseat the shaft correctly and then also reorientated the rain gauge so that the long side was at 90 degrees to the dominant wind direction and that the long side of the rain gauge was mounted along the length of the mounting arm (if that makes sense). I also gave all the connectors a quick spray with CRC just for good luck. We have had some 20 kmh winds since it has been back up and so far no false rain readings. But yes the rain gauge sited on a more rigid mounting is the way to go.

Cheers