Cumulus Support

I have been running Cumulus (Windows 8 laptop) with my Maplin N96FY (WH1081) weather station for a couple of weeks and it has rained every day. At first the 'Longest Wet Period' in the View/Highs and Lows/All-time/Rainfall table increased by one each day. but a few days ago it stopped doing this (sticking at 5 days to 11 January). On 13 January I edited the 'alltime' file in the data folder to:

longestwetperiodvalue=6
longestwetperiodtime=12/01/2014

but it has stayed at that since, despite rain being recorded each day.

I have the rain threshold set to the following (from the Diags file):

15/01/2014 05:56:10.963 : RainDayThreshold=-1.000

The latest Diags file has the following lines in it:

15/01/2014 05:56:12.596 : Time now = 15/01/2014 05:56:12
15/01/2014 05:56:12.605 : Read today file: Date = 14/01/2014, LastUpdateTime = 14/01/2014 20:01:00, Month = 1
15/01/2014 05:56:12.681 : Sensor clock 07:47:41
15/01/2014 05:56:12.681 : Station clock 07:47:58
15/01/2014 05:56:12.685 : Todayfileraindaystart = 540.599975585938
15/01/2014 05:56:12.741 : Todayfile is for today
15/01/2014 05:56:12.832 : ReadTodayfile: set notraininit false
15/01/2014 05:56:12.874 : Finding raintoday from logfile C:\Cumulus\data\Jan14log.txt
15/01/2014 05:56:13.179 : Setting raintoday from logfile = 0.300000011920929
15/01/2014 05:56:13.179 : Calculating rain counter = 540.899963378906
15/01/2014 05:56:13.179 : Midnight rain not found, using raindaystart
15/01/2014 05:56:13.183 : Read yesterday file: Date = 14/01/2014 Date now = 15/01/2014
15/01/2014 05:56:13.184 : Loading all time records file C:\Cumulus\data\alltime.ini
15/01/2014 05:56:13.201 : Set Default Monthly Highs And Lows
15/01/2014 05:56:13.201 : Read month.ini file
15/01/2014 05:56:13.340 : Set Default Yearly Highs And Lows
15/01/2014 05:56:13.340 : Read Year.ini file
15/01/2014 05:56:13.437 : Getting rain totals, rain season start = 1
15/01/2014 05:56:13.439 : Rainthismonth from dayfile.txt: 7.49999952316284
15/01/2014 05:56:13.439 : Rainthisyear from dayfile.txt: 7.49999952316284
15/01/2014 05:56:13.439 : Adding YTD: 0

The 'Rain days' reading in the View/This month table correctly shows 8 (I restarted Cumulus on 7 January) and has been increasing daily. I assume the 'Rain days' is calculated differently from the 'Longest wet period'?

I would be grateful for any help to correct the 'Longest wet period' readings.

Thanks and regards

Chris

Please zip up the diags folder and attach it.

Diags file is attached, Steve.

Chris

Please zip up the entire diags folder and attach it.

Sorry Steve, I misunderstood. Complete Diags file zipped and attached.

Chris

Cumulus thinks that your current 'wet spell' is 4 days, up to yesterday, which is why your all-time record isn't currently changing.

15/01/2014 05:57:16.941 : === Day reset, today = 15
15/01/2014 05:57:16.941 : === Day reset for 14/01/2014
15/01/2014 05:57:16.948 : Raintotal = 542.099975585938 Raindaystart = 540.599975585938
15/01/2014 05:57:16.948 : Rainyesterday (calibrated) set to 1.5
15/01/2014 05:57:16.949 : RainDayThreshold = -1
15/01/2014 05:57:16.949 : rdt1000=200 ry1000=1500
15/01/2014 05:57:16.949 : Yesterday was a rain day
15/01/2014 05:57:16.949 : Consecutive rain days = 4

So it believes there was no rain recorded on the 10th. The diags files don't go back far enough for me to see what happened at that time.

If you believe you did have rain on the 10th, and your current spell should be longer, you can stop Cumulus and edit the current spell in today.ini. If the wet spell continues today and thus your all-time record is broken, Cumulus should then update it when it does the daily rollover.

Yes Steve, it did rain here on the 10th. In fact we have had rain every day since I started Cumulus from scratch on 7 January.

I have edited the today.ini file to 8 (which corresponds to the number of rain days in the View/this month table.

It has been raining all morning today and so it should increase by one day tomorrow, as you say.

So I don't have the same problem in the future, what is the correct way to 'force' Cumulus to record a wet day when my weather station doesn't record any rain for that day, but I know it did rain?

Thanks

Chris

Do you mean that it rained on the 10th but your station didn't record any rain, for some reason?

The number of rain days shown on the 'This Month' display is calculated by counting the non-zero rainfall totals in dayfile.txt for all of the days in the month.

The consecutive wet/dry days counter is updated at each daily rollover and stored in today.ini. The alltime-record is updated at that time if required.

I'm afraid there's no easy - and reliable - way to record rain in Cumulus when the station hasn't recorded any, and get everything else updated automatically; Cumulus is not intended for manual data entry. I can't recommend use of the editor for today's rain because that's not what it's intended for and using it that way can cause problems. But you might get away with it. The most reliable way of adjusting the daily rainfall total is to edit the total in dayfile.txt after the day in question. But you would then also need to manually adjust the wet/dry spell data.

Yes Steve, it rained on the 10th but my station didn't record any rain!

Thanks for the explanation how Cumulus calculates the wet days, etc and what to do in the future.

Chris

All appears to be working now, thanks Steve, as the 'Longest Wet Period' increased from 8 to 9 when the logs rolled forward overnight (we had rain most of yesterday).