Cumulus Support

I'm hoping someone here with more VP2 experience can help me understand a large rain spike I received last night. I am running Cumulus v1.9.2 (1020) with a VP2. I have been running since June of last year, so this is my first winter with the Davis. I have not had any issues with the rain sensor or rain reporting in the past.

We are in the middle of a winter storm and at my elevation I'm right on the edge of the snow vs. rain temperature, so I can get snow that melts when it hits the ground, sticks for a little while, or just rain. This spike occurred between 3:35 AM & 3:40 AM, so I'm not sure exactly what was falling at the time.

I checked the VP2 Console and it reports the same as Cumulus. I also looked in the Diags folder and found the file attached which shows the spike.

Based on the spike and the fact there are no error messages in the log, is it possible that I bridged the rain collector with some snow which allowed water to build up above it and then it melted off or dislodged and dumped the contents during my 5 minute reporting period? Or does this look like some other kind of problem?

The other strange thing about this is that I checked several other stations in the vicinity on WU and they are all reporting about half the total rainfall I am since midnight.

I should also mention that I don't have a heater on the VP2 rain collector as this requires AC power and the VP2 is mounted several hundred feet away from a power source and is transmitting to the console over wireless.

Thanks,
Mike

Your sudden increase was around 0.75"; I would think that a snow/ice blockage holding back water which was suddenly released, is quite a feasible explanation for that amount.

I have also had the exact same thing before I installed a Heater/Collector...Snow to freezing rain to rain causes a build up and then it melts and a stream of water floods the collector, versus the trickle during the block