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Rainfall differences

Discussion specific to Oregon Scientific weather stations
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passafras
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon 26 Nov 2012 12:57 am
Weather Station: Oregon Scientific WMR200
Operating System: Windows 10 Pro
Location: Mooral Creek
Contact:

Rainfall differences

Post by passafras »

G'day Steve.

I'm running Cumulus 1.9.4 build 1099

After coming back from a few days away I uploaded the stored data from our WMR200. I saw the rain increment as our friends said it would then there was nothing though I knew it had been raining, but the rainfall rate continued to rise and fall as if it were raining from time to time.

The log file shows a large increment in the rainfall counter after a steady increment to 9998.2, the next record is 11444.0. The rain amounts are 32.5mm then 195.9 is the next record which is where it stays at until the end of that day then it fails to move from zero despite there being a number of rain events over the next few days. Our friends told us about them and Select-A-Graph for the period shows a number of rain events when the calculated rainfall rate is selected.

No rainfall appears in the logs after the end of the day with the strange amounts. Today I pulled apart the rain tube and gauge, l use a rainfall multiplier of 0.113, which it seems is fairly closely converted to 0.115. No evidence of a stuck bucket or anything living there. It was slightly grotty so I cleaned it and did one tip, this was recorded at the WMR200 console as 1mm but did not show up in Cumulus.

We have had a number of heavy rainfall events lately but the one this event was during was not particularly heavy at all. I have restricted outlet on the rain gauge to about 2mm to simulate better quality gauges, it tends to max out at around 112mm/hr which it usually OK, it also prevents very fast bucket tips though that wasn't why I did it, more for increased accuracy in heavy rain events.

I did find a post by Mark Crossley - WMR100 Rainfall Rate which talks about the number 11444 in reference to a WMR100. I think the conclusion was a faulty reed switch but in my case the WMR200 is registering rain, as rain on the console (and calculating rainfall rates?) but Cumulus did not register my test tip.

I did find a time discrepancy, the WMR200 was about 3 minutes fast, I shut down Cumulus, corrected the time and restarted Cumulus hoping that record would come in, it did not. This has fixed problems in times past

I'm wondering if the Console is sending corrupted rain data to Cumulus? Every month or so on restarting Cumulus in the morning I get data from stray years, past and future, I've tried clearing the memory and resetting so I'm a bit preconditioned to suspecting the console memory and anything else in there.

One other issue around this is that I am missing dayfiles for the period I downloaded the data for, I know I can recreate them in the Dayfile editor but I thought that was a bit pointless without knowing what is preventing rainfall recording. I suspect Cumulus Toolbox not being able to find my portable backup disk to backup Cumulus to might have been the culprit, I hadn't unpacked our bags to find the disk and reconnect it and I walked away, with a few messages of complaint from Toolbox on my return, files might have been held open, or the dayfiles might be another issue all together.

Thanks,
Paul - Mooral Creek Weather at Sassafras.
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steve
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Posts: 26702
Joined: Mon 02 Jun 2008 6:49 pm
Weather Station: None
Operating System: None
Location: Vienne, France
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Re: Rainfall differences

Post by steve »

If you zip up the diags folder and attach it, I'll take a look. If you want to repeat your experiment of a test tip while Cumulus is running, but with debug logging turned on, the debug.log file will show the packets sent by the console.
Steve
passafras
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon 26 Nov 2012 12:57 am
Weather Station: Oregon Scientific WMR200
Operating System: Windows 10 Pro
Location: Mooral Creek
Contact:

Re: Rainfall differences

Post by passafras »

Debug attached, Diags upload is timing out, I'll send it in the morning. Adding water gave 4.3mm on the Console, with Cumulus showing a rate of 57mm/hr and 0.0mm
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Paul - Mooral Creek Weather at Sassafras.
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steve
Cumulus Author
Posts: 26702
Joined: Mon 02 Jun 2008 6:49 pm
Weather Station: None
Operating System: None
Location: Vienne, France
Contact:

Re: Rainfall differences

Post by steve »

The rain counter in the data packets isn't changing, it's fixed at 45056 (hex B000). Perhaps it needs resetting at the console.
Steve
passafras
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon 26 Nov 2012 12:57 am
Weather Station: Oregon Scientific WMR200
Operating System: Windows 10 Pro
Location: Mooral Creek
Contact:

Re: Rainfall differences

Post by passafras »

Thanks Steve, all working as designed now.

I tried clearing the data logger on the console but that was not enough, it should have been empty in any case. I did a reset as you suggested, via the reset button in battery compartment. Now to ask nicely for some rainfall records over the past few days.

Over the years the rainfall and dew info has been really useful, for my studies, for people around here on holiday or not living here and for various submissions I've done about our place to upgrade protection for what lives here.
Paul - Mooral Creek Weather at Sassafras.
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