Cumulus Support

For a few months I have noticed rain showing up on my console when no rain has fallen, yet I remember lightning being around. Now, just last week, with rain near but not at my house, there was lightning within 5km and I checked my station and it had recorded .1mm of rain at the same time of the strike.
On another note, we had really close lightning, the type when the hairs stand on end THEN you hear the crackle THEN you hear the bang THEN the rumble. It took out all the street lights, and power and phone at the local pool 200m away. They were closed the next day because of it. Anyhoo, at the same time of the lightning, my station lost contact, and after 15 minutes of not connecting, I took the batteries out of the outdoor unit and restarted it.

So, any idea's on the fake rain readings? I'm guessing Ethernet cable in replace of the standard phone cable should have better shielding and just retain the original connectors of course. Now, if it was just 0.1mm difference, it wouldn't be a problem, but we had 500 strikes the other night. 50mm is an awful lot. I have no problem editing the rain total. That is fine, but it will play havoc with rain rate readings which can not be accurately fixed.

Any further ideas?

I would start with a Clip On Ferrite Filter or two.
Jaycar or Ebay.

Using twisted pair cable such as ethernet would also help.

Or move a few thousand km south...

Jim from Tassie

Hi are you sure the lighting causing reading to the rain? & Not the wind if blows the rain gauge?
I never counted how many can be in a night but here in Greece we can have about 10-20 with in a minute, never showed up extra rain ... i know because sometimes is lighting even if there is not rain

Twisted pair may be good idea but not sure about shieled .. the sealed if is not grounded (the jack plus the female jack) it may cause more issues by trapping more the spikes (but this is my speculation based from modems/routers which they are using same cables ... as far i remember the female jack built in inside at weather station sensor is not grounded ... i am not saying i am correct just to have in mind if is not grounded correct the sealed alone may not helps