Edit "last tip" line in today.ini

[bnwrx]

Is there a way to edit this line? The wind moved the rain gauge and showed 0.01 rain today but no rain occurred. I was able to use info from the Wiki to reset the rain data to 0, but the "last tip" data is still showing a tip happened today. I tried changing it to the previous "last tip" but to no avail. The last rain we had was on 11/01/2010.

Thanks

[steve]

Stop Cumulus, edit today.ini to change the date/time (keeping it in ISO format), start Cumulus. Seems to work for me.

[bnwrx]

I tried as you said.
Here is what I ini file shows when I edit it.

1today.png

But when Cumulus reopens it changes to this:

today.png

[steve]

The time is the same as the 'timestamp' i.e. the time of last update, so you're getting more rain registering when you start it up.

[bnwrx]

Not sure what I do next......

[steve]

It's probably a rounding error because you use inches and the station works in mm. It's actually recorded 0.3 mm rather than 0.01 in, so you could try putting 0.0118110236 for the Start figure. That may still not be quite right, we need to find what Cumulus would actually have written in there at midnight if you'd left it as it was.

[bnwrx]

Steve to the rescue ..AGAIN...!
Thank you that solved it, although I don't understand what I did

[steve]

I don't understand what I did

It uses a minimum difference of 0.001 between readings to determine whether rain has fallen, to avoid rounding problems. You set the start of day figure to 0.01 (which is fair enough), but the counter is actually at 0.3 mm, i.e. about 0.0118 inches, so there was a difference of 0.0018 or so, which is greater than the 0.001 threshold, so it thought it had rained. It's not at all obvious, but you need to bear in mind for future reference that the station works in mm, so each tip is actually a little bit more than 0.01 inches.

[steve]

By the way, I'm amazed that you've had no rain for over four months - in winter! Or is it that it just snows all the time?

[bnwrx]

By the way, I'm amazed that you've had no rain for over four months - in winter! Or is it that it just snows all the time?

Yes it is amazing this year. We live on the Eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, most storms come west to east and this year especially, they have dropped large amounts of snow in the mountains but have nothing left when they get here. Typically when Spring arrives a change in the jet stream, moves storms a little further South than during Winter months, and these storms bring more moisture to us. We are about 45" behind average for this season in snow amounts. Things are very dry and numerous wildfires are occurring on the Plains just east of here.
I might add I cover my rain gauge from Dec thru March because most of the time if there is moisture it is snow and freezing temps so I don't worry about "water equivalent" when it snows.

Again thank you for your assistance.