Rainfall glitch

[abarnett1934]

Today my rainfall registered as 743.4mm of rain in 1 hour. We had a bit of rain, but not that much.
How can I eradicate this from my records??
Anyone any ideas what caused this?

[steve]

Cumulus uses the 'total rain counter' from the station to calculate all of the data, so the station probably sent something silly - and probably temporarily, as I assume your daily total is OK?

Have a look in Aug09log.txt and see what the progression of total rainfall counter figures looks like (it's easy to find, it's the one just after the pressure). How you correct it depends on what happened to the counter, and exactly which of your figures are affected.

[abarnett1934]

Dear Steve,
Many thanks for prompt reply
My daily rainfall for today is showing 743.4
This month 767.1 (should be about 23.7)
This year 831.6
The Auglog shows 26.08.09 6.31am 88.5mm (correct)
" 7.01am 116.4 (possible?)
" 7.31am 172.8 (impossible)
" 13.30 831.9mm
This reading has continued until present time.
Any idea how to correct this?
Best wishes,
Arthur

[steve]

Right - so it does sound like the case where the counter suddenly jumps up and stays there. To get today's rain total back to normal, you'll need to stop Cumulus and edit today.ini. The 'Start=' value in there is supposed to be the rain counter at the start of day, from which today's total is calculated. You'll need to increase that to correspond to the current 831.9 value. Set it to 831.9 less whatever you think a more realistic figure is for today's rainfall (e.g. if you think you've really had 20mm, set it to 811.9. When you restart Cumulus, your rain for today should then reflect that. But it does look as though your counter has jumped more than once, so maybe the problem will occur again. Perhaps the rain has got inside the unit?

Once you've corrected today's rainfall, this month and this year should sort themselves out. Your high rain rate in today's extremes is probably also showing a silly value? You can correct that in today.ini also (the 'High' value in the [Rain] section). Also, you all-time high rain rate is probably showing the same thing, the easiest way to correct that is to copy the backup alltime.rec file from the latest folder in the backups folder (assuming you have a recent enough backup that you haven't broken any other records since).

Finally (I think) your running total for today (the figure before the pressure) in Aug09log.txt will be wrong, and you can edit those to something more realistic. A bit of a pain!

[abarnett1934]

Dear Steve,
You are a genius - many thanks. The only problem now is my all time records showing the wrong rainfall.

I have copied alltime.rec file from the latest folder in the backups folder - where do I paste it?
Again my thanks,
Arthur

[daj]

you could just edit your all time records within Cumulus -- click Edit, All time records and modify the figures

[steve]

I have copied alltime.rec file from the latest folder in the backups folder - where do I paste it?

Just copy it into the data folder, overwriting the old one (which you might want to take a copy of first, just in case). You need to do it with Cumulus stopped.

As David says, you can instead use the editor, but that requires you to know what the old correct values were.

[abarnett1934]

Dear Steve,
Many thanks, I have now corrected all my rainfall readings.
It would appear that my rain gauge is broken, as the buckets no longer freely tip back and forth and it's almost as if one side has a spring forcing it back. This must be what caused the incorrect readings yesterday.
This weekend I will see if I can get the rain sensor apart.
All the best,
Arthur

[steve]

It would appear that my rain gauge is broken, as the buckets no longer freely tip back and forth and it's almost as if one side has a spring forcing it back.

Possibly the bucket assembly has slipped out of the mounting?