Longest dry period

[geoffp]

Hi Steve, not sure that the longest dry period for this month is correct or is it me being senile again?

From Monthly Records:-

Rainfall
Highest Rain Rate 0.0 mm/hr 00:00 on 01 March
Highest Hourly Rainfall 0.0 mm 00:00 on 01 March
Highest Daily Rainfall 0.0 mm 01 March
Longest Consecutive Dry Period 8 01 March
Longest Consecutive Wet Period 0 01 March


Todays Records on Home Page

Highest Temp 7.6 at 02:29
Lowest Temp 4.4 at 06:13
Highest Wind gust 4.3 at 01:29
Highest Wind 10 min. avg. 2.4 at 01:35
Consecutive Wet Days this Month 0
Consecutive Dry Days this Month 8

[steve]

Which figure are you disputing? It helps when saying that your data is incorrect if you say what you think it should be, and show the reason.

From your daily rain graph on your site, your current dry spell is 8 days, so that's the figure Cumulus is giving. If your query is actually how can it be 8 when we have only had 1 day in March, then you probably didn't read the discussion that took place at the time I implemented the facility. I took the decision that it doesn't make sense for the longest dry/wet spell figure to suddenly start again at the beginning of a month (or year). If it did, what real use is the figure? If you're in the middle of a long drought, for example, and your 'longest dry spell this month' is 1 day, what meaning does that figure have?

While making this decision, I looked around on the web for sites which already displayed this figure, and while there don't seem to many of them out there, the ones I found all did it this way, so I'm clearly not the only one thinking it should be done this way.

So the figure is actually, if you like, 'the longest wet/dry spell that ended this month' (or hasn't ended yet). I'm not sure the figure has a great deal of meaning whether it's reset at the start of the month or not, but I think it makes more sense the way I've done it.

There is a FAQ for this, by the way

[geoffp]

Thanks Steve, told you it was another senile moment, getting the hang of it now, sorry to bother you again