Rainfall manual adjustment

[daj]

I had an rainfall explosion overnight -- apparently raining at 237 mm/hr at 4am. So assuming no one was was pouring a bucket of water into the collector I am taking this as an error.

I have adjusted my November log file, and the today.ini. However, can I ask what the "Start=" is in the Rain section? (Nothing in the Wiki so I will update once we know)

Also, I need to repair my all time records figure -- other than reverting to a backup ( ) I assume the only other way would be to import copies of the monthly files into excel and look for the highest figure?

[steve]

I had an rainfall explosion overnight -- apparently raining at 237 mm/hr at 4am. So assuming no one was was pouring a bucket of water into the collector I am taking this as an error.

You can check whether the excess rain was a station glitch, either temporary or permanent (i.e. rain counter jumps up a number of tips and either then goes back down, or stays at the new level) or a Cumulus glitch, by checking the 'total rainfall counter' in the Nov09log.txt file at around the time it happened.

can I ask what the "Start=" is in the Rain section?

It's the value of the 'total rainfall counter' at start of day. Cumulus calculates the rain so far today by subtracting that value from the current total rainfall counter. So, when you want to fix today's total in the case where the 'permanent station counter jump' situation has occurred, you need to increase the Start= value by the amount you want to take off today's total.

Also, I need to repair my all time records figure -- other than reverting to a backup ( ) I assume the only other way would be to import copies of the monthly files into excel and look for the highest figure?

Yes, that's right. But I'd have thought there would be a copy of alltime.rec in one of the Cumulus backup folders which you could use. It depends on how often you start Cumulus, as a backup only gets created at each start up (it's a bit hard to do one 'on the fly').

[daj]

...You can check whether the excess rain was a station glitch, either temporary or permanent (i.e. rain counter jumps up a number of tips and either then goes back down, or stays at the new level) or a Cumulus glitch, by checking the 'total rainfall counter' in the Nov09log.txt file at around the time it happened.

Code: Select all

02/11/09,04:00,8.8,88,6.9,8.1,10.6,319,0.0,8.2,982.3,36.9,17.0,55,6.7,6.7,8.8
02/11/09,04:10,8.9,88,7.0,6.7,6.7,1,0.0,8.2,982.3,36.9,17.0,55,6.7,7.2,8.9
02/11/09,04:20,8.9,88,7.0,7.4,9.4,352,0.0,8.2,982.3,36.9,17.0,55,9.4,7.0,8.9
02/11/09,04:30,9.1,87,7.0,8.3,9.4,321,0.0,8.2,982.3,36.9,17.0,55,9.4,7.0,9.1
02/11/09,04:40,9.1,87,7.0,11.0,17.2,308,0.0,8.2,982.3,36.9,17.0,55,17.2,6.5,9.1
02/11/09,04:50,9.1,87,7.0,17.1,17.2,21,0.0,8.2,982.3,36.9,16.9,55,14.5,5.6,9.1

Nothing looks out of place as the counter seems work fine (36.9) but the 4:10am "rainfall so far" figure jumped to 28.2 so I took 20 off it

can I ask what the "Start=" is in the Rain section?

It's the value of the 'total rainfall counter' at start of day. Cumulus calculates the rain so far today by subtracting that value from the current total rainfall counter. So, when you want to fix today's total in the case where the 'permanent station counter jump' situation has occurred, you need to increase the Start= value by the amount you want to take off today's total.

Thanks, fixed.

Also, I need to repair my all time records figure -- other than reverting to a backup ( ) I assume the only other way would be to import copies of the monthly files into excel and look for the highest figure?

Yes, that's right. But I'd have thought there would be a copy of alltime.rec in one of the Cumulus backup folders which you could use. It depends on how often you start Cumulus, as a backup only gets created at each start up (it's a bit hard to do one 'on the fly').

Hey, forgot all about the Cumulus backup files -- I had one from Saturday afternoon which is perfect.

I moved the instruments at the weekend to a more exposed area of the garden, and further away from the console so I am keeping an eye on things just in case it is too far. I've never had a rain issue in 18 months so this is a first and I hope it is unrelated to the move

[steve]

Nothing looks out of place as the counter seems work fine (36.9) but the 4:10am "rainfall so far" figure jumped to 28.2 so I took 20 off it

I think that probably means that the counter jumped temporarily by 20mm, possibly just for one reading, but then returned to normal. Whether that was the station's fault, Cumulus's fault, or just a transmission error, is hard to say.