Rain Counter - Again!

[mcrossley]

Steve

I have had hardware problems with my FO transmitter yesterday and today, so the transmitter counter has been reset to zero on both days.

Yesterday, in today.ini I just set start= to end of the previous days total, and Cumulus duly totted up the rainfall for yesterday and took account of the counter reset back to zero.

Today, the Aug10 log file has the counter starting at zero, then some rain (3.6mm) in the early hours, today I had to reset the transmitter, so the counter is back to zero.

However if I set the today.ini start=0, Cumulus does not add the rainfall today, the start of zero, and current zero seem to have baffled it and it ignores the rainfall in between. It does of course still have a record of the peak rainfall rate etc.

Any ideas how I can get today's rain added back in?

[steve]

You'll need to wait until tomorrow and add the rain in restrospectively. The only mechanism for determining today's rain is by comparing the current counter with the start of day counter - it simply can't cope with the counter changing in odd ways during the day.

[mcrossley]

OK, no problems, I'll sort it out in the morning - thanks Steve.

[mcpaton]

Mine is doing stupid things too... Adding huge amounts of rain that simply havent happened, and arent reflected on the weather station. I tried going back to old backup files, but it then just overwrites with the new data it reads from the weather station...

Is there a way to forget the last couple of erroneuos readings, or should I just start again fresh, losing the last 8 months of data?

[nking]

Mine is doing stupid things too... Adding huge amounts of rain that simply havent happened, and arent reflected on the weather station. I tried going back to old backup files, but it then just overwrites with the new data it reads from the weather station...

Is there a way to forget the last couple of erroneuos readings, or should I just start again fresh, losing the last 8 months of data?

Take a look at FAQ http://wiki.sandaysoft.com/a/FAQ#My_sta ... it_to_zero

This should sort you out

[steve]

Adding huge amounts of rain that simply havent happened, and arent reflected on the weather station.

Cumulus only has the 'total counter' from the rain gauge itself from which to calculate all aspects of rainfall. Sometimes when the counter goes up suddenly, this is reflected on the console, but sometimes it isn't; clearly the console has other data it can draw on to determine the rainfall. It does make you wonder how it manages to ignore a sudden jump in the counter; I guess it has some sort of criteria for deciding that the rainfall is unrealistic. It's not quite so easy to do the same think in Cumulus, but it's something I can look into for Cumulus 2 at some point.

You can confirm that it is indeed simply a matter of the rain gauge counter increasing unrealistically by looking at the values Cumulus logs in the monthly files.

[zaax]

WH1081 weather station.

Sort of the same here. It been raining heavy here in east Suffolk and my rain gauge has not record a drop. I suspect it is clogged with debris and spiders webs. Last time I flushed it though with water, but it recorded about 5 inches per minute.

Any ideas of how to clean it without recording or delete the recording once made?

[steve]

Any ideas of how to clean it without recording or delete the recording once made?

I would suggest unplugging the rain gauge from the transmitter while cleaning it, but I have a feeling that unplugging and/or replugging it has been known to cause odd values to get recorded anyway. But I don't know of any better way.

To fix the data if it does get recorded, use the FAQ entry that Neil referenced above.

[mcpaton]

Thanks. I managed to sort my bad data yesterday, but some older data was bad also (recorded a daily amount of 2079mm instead of 279 mm) so my annual total is way out of whack... how do I edit the annual total?

[steve]

(recorded a daily amount of 2079mm instead of 279 mm) so my annual total is way out of whack... how do I edit the annual total?

The annual total is just the sum of the daily totals, so if you correct the erroneous daily total(s) with Cumulus stopped, the annual total should be correct when you start Cumulus up again.

[mcpaton]

(recorded a daily amount of 2079mm instead of 279 mm) so my annual total is way out of whack... how do I edit the annual total?

The annual total is just the sum of the daily totals, so if you correct the erroneous daily total(s) with Cumulus stopped, the annual total should be correct when you start Cumulus up again.

did this, but it didnt change my annual total. Apparently I've had over 5 meters of rain, when its more like 2.

[steve]

If you upload your dayfile.txt, I'll have a look.

[mcpaton]

Hi Steve

I've uploaded all files from this year in a zip. I find it quite difficult to read them... I tried making a copy and opening in Excel, but Excel killed the formatting which is unfortunate...

Appreciate your assistance

Cheers

[steve]

I've uploaded all files from this year in a zip. I find it quite difficult to read them... I tried making a copy and opening in Excel, but Excel killed the formatting which is unfortunate...

Toolbox is good for viewing (and editing) the data logs.

You have two days in dayfile.txt with suspiciously high amounts of rain:

23/05/10,3.6,270,16:40,15.6,18:40,26.5,23:40,1018.5,09:40,1021.8,23:40,0.0,21:58,1850.1,17.6,1.6,1.1,16:40

28/07/10,8.6,270,23:32,13.4,22:32,29.9,23:32,1008.5,11:02,1020.4,00:00,0.0,00:00,1813.8,19.5,14.1,3.6,23:32

[mcpaton]

This is driving me nuts again. Cumulus says I had 555mm of rain yesterday, however we had none. What files do I need to edit to remove it? I removed the dayfile entries, and made the today.ini and yesterday.ini files 0.0mm,however the nov10 file keeps adding it in at the bottom.

Thanks.