YTD Rainfall is off by 13.11"

[aznetcowboy]

We had a daily rainfall of .20" yesterday. The YTD total before the rain started was 13.21". Now it shows 26.52". How can I correct the YTD total to show the real total which should be 13.41"?

I have been told it is incorrect by several people which means at least I know it is being watched.

[steve]

The annual total is calculated by adding all of the daily totals in dayfile.txt - see the FAQ. It also adds in any additional 'year to date' figure that you have supplied on the station settings screen - this is for the first, incomplete year when you start using Cumulus. Presumably you haven't put anything in there?

[aznetcowboy]

I checked the dayfile.txt and what I see in the total rainfall column (going back to January 1st) is exactly what I would expect to see. It shows .20" for yesterday which agrees with my CoCoRaHS rain gauge. The first place I looked at for the rainfall was the dayfile.txt. Then I went online and changed the amount in CUTags.php, but it keeps going back to the incorrect amount.This is truly baffling.

[steve]

Please zip up the diags folder and dayfile.txt, and attach to a reply, and I'll take a look.

[aznetcowboy]

Please zip up the diags folder and dayfile.txt, and attach to a reply, and I'll take a look.

Here they are. Thanks.

[steve]

Those diags files are from the beginning of October.

[aznetcowboy]

I see what you mean. In fact it is from last year. This was the only one I found. Just to be sure, where should it be? I assume it is in the online file, not on my weather PC.

[steve]

It should be wherever you created it, Cumulus doesn't create it. Zip up the current folder. Instructions are in the post linked to near the top of the forum - "Please click here before posting...".

[aznetcowboy]

I found it. Or should I say them. It has been so long since I last looked for the Diags I forgot how they worked. My apologies.

[steve]

You have configured a year to date figure of 13.1 in for this year.

10/29/2015 13:40:10.686 : YTDRain=13.100 Year=2015

So Cumulus is doing what you've told it to do, and added that figure in to this year's total from dayfile.txt:

10/29/2015 13:40:13.507 : Rainthisyear from dayfile.txt: 13.2100019454956
10/29/2015 13:40:13.507 : Adding YTD: 13.1000003814697

Giving a total of 26.31 inches, plus today's 0.22, giving 26.53 inches, currently (as of the end of the latest diags file).

The 'year to date' figure on the station settings screen is for rain which wasn't recorded by Cumulus, i.e. typically when you have started using Cumulus and you have some rain recorded earlier in the year by some other means. Cumulus subsequently keeps track of the annual total itself. It would be pretty poor design if you had to keep supplying the total yourself, I wouldn't even use Cumulus myself if it worked that way.

[aznetcowboy]

I seem to remember doing something to that setting, but can't remember what my logic was in doing so. Senior moment? Anyway, if I totally delete that field, then it should come back into the proper setting, right?

[steve]

Yes; you will probably need to restart Cumulus after changing it.

[aznetcowboy]

Yup, you are right, I did need to restart Cumulus. It was a good reason to shut down the weather computer to give it a rest after being up for weeks.