Enhancing Cumulus - Greatest Deviation from Monthly Average

[RayProudfoot]

Steve,

During this very cold spell we're enduring in the UK I've been looking at the monthly 'Departure from Norm' values in the NOAA reports to see where this month rated.

It's certainly the coldest March for this station but December 2010 was even colder (relatively) at -4.7 below the average. But I think March 2013 could well end up as the second coldest. April 2011 was the 'warmest' at 4.2 above the norm.

Do you think it would be possible and desirable to keep records of the greatest deviations from the norm for a month? That would obviously include warmer as well as cooler variations. They could be stored on the Monthly Records page or even on a new Averages page. I maintain my season averages but they're calculated manually. http://www.cheadlehulmeweather.co.uk/seasonaverages.htm

Of course this would necessitate average temperatures being stored in Cumulus so a comparison can be made. Currently the only place they are stored is in the NOAA setup procedure. Maybe you could tap into that? If so it might be a relatively easy change to implement.

Happy to raise an enhancement request if you agree.

[steve]

Yes, it could be added to the monthly records (greatest deviations for each month of the year) and to the all-time records (greatest deviations for any month, ever). Cumulus doesn't store many averages (most are calculated on the fly for display) so it would require changes to start doing those (with the option perhaps to use the manually entered NOAA values).

[RayProudfoot]

Thanks. Do you want me to raise the enhancement request? Timescale is of course down to you whenever you feel like tacking the code again.

[steve]

Do you want me to raise the enhancement request?

Yes please, otherwise it will get forgotten. At the moment I'm only doing small changes to Cumulus as my job is currently using up most of my programming energy, and besides that I'm currently considering whether to stop major development of this version of Cumulus in favour of "Cumulus: The Next Generation", whatever that may be.

[RayProudfoot]

Okay Steve, will do.

That sounds exciting. Not the same as C2 of course. C3..PO perhaps.

[steve]

Thinking of a name is the hardest part...

[RayProudfoot]

Thinking of a name is the hardest part...

You're not wrong! If it had been me I would have ended up calling Cumulus "Weather Recorder".

I suppose if you want a more macho product Cumulonimbus might do. Better than "Stratus"!