More trend graphs related to rain and other farming data

[janival]

One wish for future Cumulus versions: It would be nice to have more trend graphs related to rain, because for farming purposes it is of interest. Now there is daily rain from past days, but these graphs would also be interesting:
- Weekly rain
- Monthly rain

Then also from farming point of view following things would be of interest
- thermal sum of the year
- thermal season dates (e.g. when did thermal summer begin etc.)

I use only the web page part, so having this data as web tags would be most usefult.

And yet another thing: in addition to monthly records, a nice thing would also be 'past year month-by-month'

Just little something to yout todo-list, in case it is too short

-Jani

[steve]

Then also from farming point of view following things would be of interest
- thermal sum of the year
- thermal season dates (e.g. when did thermal summer begin etc.)

You'll have to tell me what those are, because I've heard of them before.

Just little something to yout todo-list, in case it is too short

It's very long; it's here: https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/tracker.php

That's where you need to add your requests (if they are not there already), so they don't get forgotten. But please do add them and hopefully I will get around to them eventually, as they seem perfectly reasonable. I've noticed that some people ask for things and when I ask them to create an enhancement request, they don't bother.

In addition to that list, I have also started on a new cross-platform version of Cumulus which involves a complete rewrite . This version will hopefully make possible a lot of web tags etc which are not currently easy to do.

[janival]

Actually seems like these are scandinavian things, I thought they would be more commonly used...

Thermal seasons, copy from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season
"
In Sweden and Finland, meteorologists use a definition for the seasons based on the temperature. Spring begins when the daily averaged temperature permanently rises above 0°C, summer begins when the temperature permanently rises above +10°C, summer ends when the temperature permanently falls below +10°C and winter begins when the temperature permanently falls below 0°C. "Permanently" here means that the daily averaged temperature has remained above or below the limit for seven consecutive days. This implies two things: first, the seasons do not begin at fixed dates but must be determined by observation and are known only after the fact; and second, a new season begins at different dates in different parts of the country.
"

Thermal sum, I did not even find anything in English wikipedia: http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehoisa_l% ... C3%B6summa
But in short it is calculated by summing daily average temperature minus 5 degrees, from all days where average temperature is over 5 degrees (the formula is shown in the Finnish wiki page. Different crops/plants require different heat sums before they can be harvested, and that is why some institutes in Finland calculate those values.

And after more searches there seems to be an english term Growing-degree day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growing_degree_day which describes the same thing. Looks like in generic form this formula has also other 'base values' which are subtracted from the average temperature than the 5 degrees which is most normal in Finland (most likely due to most normal farming crops, the length of the season where average temperature is over 10 degrees is just too short).

I'll check the tracker, and try to add my wishes there!

Jani

[steve]

From your description, Cumulus has at least partial support for this already. It has web tags for the 'heating degree days' and 'cooling degree days' figures for today so far, and for yesterday. And while not available as web tags, daily, monthly and annual totals for these are available in the 'NOAA-style reports', see this folder on my web site for some examples: http://sanday.org.uk/weather/reports/

Thanks for creating those enhancement requests.

[janival]

Thanks for the info, I'll have a look at the reports!