Cumulus Support

Having nearly 16 years of continuous weather data I get a great deal of enjoyment analysing the data. With my Access and Excel skills I import the dayfile info into a database and can interrogate to my hearts content.

Am I alone in this interest?

Definitely not - I do the same, but my series is only 4.5 years.

freddie wrote: ↑Thu 16 Jan 2025 11:40 am Definitely not - I do the same, but my series is only 4.5 years.

That's good to hear. I know it's difficult to add this analysis to webpages but social media is a good outlet. I'm a member of Nextdoor and many people find my posts interesting.

I also analyze/chart/plot outside of Cumulus from time to time. I have an Access database linked to the mySQL database I have on my web server.

Guy

Whilst I have a paperwork summary, I also submit my data at month end to the Climatological Observers Link (COL), and have done so for many years.

RayProudfoot wrote: ↑Thu 16 Jan 2025 11:04 am Having nearly 16 years of continuous weather data I get a great deal of enjoyment analysing the data. With my Access and Excel skills I import the dayfile info into a database and can interrogate to my hearts content.

Am I alone in this interest?

With almost 13 years of data from my weather station, I would love to get data like, what have been the first fifteen days of January colder?

But I don't have any program that allows me. I have not yet tried the new functions of Cumulusmx. I don't know if they are as powerful as for those kinds of questions.

Some time ago I tried with and access to develop a method for these consultations, but my knowledge is not enough and I did not succeed

@grwkak, well done! Databases are ideal for this kind of analysis. But their weak point is producing charts. That’s where Excel comes in in.

@nottub, have you considered transferring the data to a spreadsheet? Free ones are available.

https://www.libreoffice.org/

@meteosangonera, a spreadsheet might work. Add a formula to add the max temps for the last five days. You’ll have a new column and scrolling down should reveal the lowest period.

Otherwise it’s SQL using a database.

Earlier versions of Office 2010 are available for reasonable prices.

https://softwarebase.uk/office-2010-standard

There are different licence offers. The cheapest is locked to the PC it’s installed on. More expensive packages allow you to install on a new computer should your existing one fail.

RayProudfoot wrote: ↑Fri 17 Jan 2025 12:07 pm @grwkak, well done! Databases are ideal for this kind of analysis. But their weak point is producing charts. That’s where Excel comes in in.

@nottub, have you considered transferring the data to a spreadsheet? Free ones are available.

https://www.libreoffice.org/

@meteosangonera, a spreadsheet might work. Add a formula to add the max temps for the last five days. You’ll have a new column and scrolling down should reveal the lowest period.

Otherwise it’s SQL using a database.

I do have excel tabbed pages by month, with another page extracting data as the year progresses. All self created.

Martyn

meteosangonera wrote: ↑Fri 17 Jan 2025 8:10 am With almost 13 years of data from my weather station, I would love to get data like, what have been the first fifteen days of January colder?

But I don't have any program that allows me. I have not yet tried the new functions of Cumulusmx. I don't know if they are as powerful as for those kinds of questions.

Some time ago I tried with and access to develop a method for these consultations, but my knowledge is not enough and I did not succeed

I've come up with a simple solution using Excel 2010. It's far from perfect but the alternative involves a lot of work.

Using Access create a query with date and max temp. Export it as a CSV file.

Import it into Excel so it looks like the sample below.
In cell D7 enter the following formula - =SUM(C4:C7)

Selecting the right bottom corner drag the mouse downwards to D18 to populate the other cells with that formula.

Look at cell D12. Its value is 5.6. That's the total of the temperatures for cells C9:C12. The four days with the coldest temps.

Trying to sort using LOOKUP only works if data in column D is in ascending order. As it's not possible to sort that column without messing the data up I can't see a way of doing it in Excel other than this way.

If you want to select the coldest 7 days change the formula in cell D10 to Sum(C4:C10)

I missed one thing. In cell E1 enter the following… =MIN(D4:D999).

If you have more than 999 rows increase that number accordingly.

That will show you the cell containing the lowest four day temperature. If you scroll down to that row you can see the four dates with the coldest temps.

RayProudfoot wrote: ↑Fri 17 Jan 2025 12:07 pm @grwkak, well done! Databases are ideal for this kind of analysis. But their weak point is producing charts. That’s where Excel comes in in.

@nottub, have you considered transferring the data to a spreadsheet? Free ones are available.

https://www.libreoffice.org/

@meteosangonera, a spreadsheet might work. Add a formula to add the max temps for the last five days. You’ll have a new column and scrolling down should reveal the lowest period.

Otherwise it’s SQL using a database.

One thing I tried for a bit was using Tableau - a data visualization system. I could use Excel - but not Access with the free version! Worked nicely for plots of large amounts of data.Yes - databases are good for storage but Access in particular is not good at analysis. It was better a while ago!

Guy

grwkak wrote: ↑Sat 18 Jan 2025 11:57 am Yes - databases are good for storage but Access in particular is not good at analysis. It was better a while ago!

Guy

Really? I've done loads of analysis using Access. For example, the number of days by month for each year when the max temp =>21.0C.

That would be impossible with a spreadsheet.

Used to use Pivot tables - which were built into Access - then they removed them and basically said everyone uses Excel anyway. Thats the sort of thing I mean where I ended up extracting data or linking to Access with Excel vs. one step!

Guy

grwkak wrote: ↑Sat 18 Jan 2025 1:56 pm Used to use Pivot tables - which were built into Access - then they removed them and basically said everyone uses Excel anyway. Thats the sort of thing I mean where I ended up extracting data or linking to Access with Excel vs. one step!

Guy

Use a query builder.