Sandaysoft

My computer is usually running around the clock and update my website every five minutes. This week, the computer has been off a few days. Last night I started up the computer and software downloaded values for this week. I noticed that the rain that fell yesterday was not recorded by my weather station. According to my neighbor, it rained 25 mm. Can I enter these values manually?
The site is powered by Cumulus v1.8.8 (881)

//Magnus

http://www.samone.se/cumulus/index.htm

You can edit the dayfile.txt to put yesterday's total in. File formats are in the help and the wiki.

If the station didn't record 25 mm of rain, that suggests some sort of problem with your rain gauge - you need to check for spiders etc.

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Steve
Sanday Weather
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Thank's for the help Steve!
I guess that I have to get up at the top of my roof to check the gauge. I have not done it just because it's a hornet's nest where rain gauges are. It is expected to rain during the day so I will notice if there are continuing problems and if so, I must go up against the nest the next few days.

//Magnus

Edit:
By the way Steve. The tag <#tomorrowdaylength>, are you going to remove it? Isn't that the tag who says somthing like "Tomorrow will be 4 minutes shorter than today"? I was wondering if there is a tag who can tell me something like "Last week daylight was 24 minutes longer than this week" or similar. Is that possible at all? I would find it interesting to know from sunday to sunday for exmple. I was not aware that the tag has been a problem.
(My wife isn't that happy to see the word shorter, hehe)

I think there was an outcry when I proposed removing it, even though it behaves a bit strangely around the solstices.
There aren't any other tags like that at the moment, and given the problems and the amount of code I would have to write to provide them, I don't propose to add any new ones for the time being - sorry.

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Steve
Sanday Weather
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Magnus, you mentioned not liking the word 'shorter', Steve has actually changed the wording of that tag to 'There will be 3min 28s less daylight tomorrow' as the daylength never changes, it's always 24hrs.

Steve, regarding the solstices, mine behaved fine, not completely accurate but I wasn't really bothered for the sake of a few seconds twice a year. Glad you kept the tag!

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Paul

http://www.greatcollegestreet.co.uk -Online
http://www.lehamel.eu - Online

I am also one who is glad to see the tag about less daylight remaining, Steve. I have always found that one of the interesting bits of trivia on weather pages.

Well, it just feels like i've only got 23 hours, sometimes even less.
I'm running v1.8.8 and it still says "Tomorrow will be 5min 1s shorter than today". Perhaps the change are made in a later version? But i've got your point. Ofcourse the daylength is 24hrs.

Have a great weekend

Steve changed the wording in v1.8.9 930.

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Paul

http://www.greatcollegestreet.co.uk -Online
http://www.lehamel.eu - Online

I have a similar problem, but wonder if it's me rather than the equipment which needs calibrating (I'm a complete novice).

This morning, for example, there was a rain shower which didn't register on my 1080. It didn't last very long, but would certainly have necessitated the use of windscreen wipers if I'd been driving.

I've checked the rain gauge is free from squatting insects: it is, at the moment, but I will probably have to proof it using netting. I have tested it using drops of water manually fed into the tipper buckets: it registered 1.5mm as a result. I suppose it may be that my assumption that the gauge should always detect any precipitation other than the most trifling of drops is wrong - I don't have any instinct for what feels to me like a fair rain shower equates to in terms of mm, and its consequent detectability to the WH1080.

My instinct tells me that the angled sides on the WH1080 collector are too shallow, and despite the glossy finish of the plastic water tends to bead on the surface rather than running down into the drop-feeder at the centre.

It's surprising how much rain is required to cause a 0.3mm bucket to tip. Even with my VP2 and its 0.1mm bucket, I am often surprised how long it takes to tip in light rain. And yes, the shallow Fine Offset gauge doesn't help.

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Steve
Sanday Weather
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You will often find that a small shower fails to register, it takes .3mm to tip a bucket, doesn't sound much I know. If you need to check it just setup a manual collector (a large glass and a ruler will do), you will be surprised that a shower is often less than .3mm Looks like Steve has already answered

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Neil
Hurstpierpoint Weather

Yes I found this too. As supplied the rain gauge failed to register most short showers. It needed either a very heavy one or more prolonged. When I increased the catchment area by about 4x by using a much larger funnel (on top of the built-in one) I noticed a great improvement but even now with the sensitivity increase to <0.1mm it still misses a short light shower. I'm even considering a bigger funnel if I can find one. The one I'm using came from a hardware store and was the biggest they had (170mm or about 7in). However, this current size seems to be what most of the better weather stations use.

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Gina

Sorry, no banner - weather station out of action. Hoping to be up and running with a new home-made one soon.

Been looking online and there are bigger funnels available - sold for beer making. 10" (25.5cm) and 12" (30.5cm). These would give about twice and three times the catchment area of my present funnel. The larger one has a filter included which would keep the bugs out.

Now for a question :- Is there any disadvantage of increasing the area this much?

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Gina

Sorry, no banner - weather station out of action. Hoping to be up and running with a new home-made one soon.

I would think the risk is that a downpour would swamp the tippers and they would not be able to keep up an accurate measurement, great for a drizzle though

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Neil
Hurstpierpoint Weather

One of the problems of these rain gauges is the plastic surface will bead the water to the point of holding quite a bit of water during a light shower.

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Georgia Home Orchard

http://georgiahomeorchard.blogspot.com/