Phantom rainfall readings

[hotevad]

I repeatedly obtain rainfall readings of 48.6mm, but have not had any rain. I have modified and deleted data in the log files and attempted to edit the all-time records in Cumulus, but it does not seem to save the changes.

I have only had my station for a couple of weeks and have not any any rain, so I am happy to reset everything if needs be. I must be doing something wrong!

Any suggestions?

Cheers,

David

[steve]

When you say "repeatedly", do you mean on several occasions, or do you mean just today and you can't get rid of it? If the latter, you need to edit the Start= value in today.ini - add 48.6 to it with Cumulus stopped.

[geoffw]

....... and once you have got it right (over two days to see the today and yesterday.ini files do not trigger it again) make a regular backup of the whole Data folder.

I've had so much difficulty with phantom rain recently and editing the CVS files can be really fiddly, I'm backing up every couple of days now I've got it right.

[werribee_au]

Hello David,

With a Digitech (Fine offset 1081 ) Station I guess you are in AU or NZ.

If I am correct and you have the rain gauge mounted on the pole, you'll get those phantom readings when it shakes (Wind, Hail, Birds etc) You'll probably need to remove it from the mast and and mount it on something more solid, or come up with another idea to make it more sturdy.

It took me a few weeks when I first got the station to figure that one out.

Another thing, I found unplugging/plugging the usb cable while any weather software is running on the pc can screw up the readings, I guess it is probably while the software is polling the station for data. As a rule, I now always shut down cumulus before unplugging the usb.

I haven't had any false readings for months now.....

These forums are a magnificent resourse & tool

Good luck!
Gerard

[hotevad]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I actually did move the rain sensor to a more wind resistant location, but during this time I did have the receiver turned off, but perhaps didn't shut down cumulus.

Thanks to Steve, I have now eliminated the today/yesterday rain reading, but I am still showing a total for month/year of 243.0mm (a multiple of my phantom readings of 48.6mm).

And yes, I am in Perth, Western Australia.

Cheers,

David

[steve]

I actually did move the rain sensor to a more wind resistant location, but during this time I did have the receiver turned off, but perhaps didn't shut down cumulus.

The rain total is held in the transmitter.

Thanks to Steve, I have now eliminated the today/yesterday rain reading, but I am still showing a total for month/year of 243.0mm (a multiple of my phantom readings of 48.6mm).

You need to edit the daily totals in dayfile.txt.

[werribee_au]

otevad wrote:
I actually did move the rain sensor to a more wind resistant location, but during this time I did have the receiver turned off, but perhaps didn't shut down cumulus.

The rain total is held in the transmitter.

Woah, that's one thing I didn't know, I thought that it was just a dumb transmitter, transmitting the latest 48 seconds.
(Now that's probably why I had difficulty removing rain totals some months ago, didn't climb up the pole and pull the batteries)

Did pull my hair out though.

[steve]

Woah, that's one thing I didn't know, I thought that it was just a dumb transmitter, transmitting the latest 48 seconds.
(Now that's probably why I had difficulty removing rain totals some months ago, didn't climb up the pole and pull the batteries)

Yes, this is why people keep saying they've cleared the rain total in the console, so it's now showing zero, but Cumulus is still showing rain. Having been reset, the console can start counting again from zero, but Cumulus just uses that rain counter from the transmitter, so the console reset has no effect in Cumulus.

[hotevad]

Thank you all . I have eliminated the phantom rainfall readings (officially Perth has not had any rain for 54 days).

I will see what tomorrow brings just to bring all records up to date, fingers crossed.

Cheers,

David