Author Topic: Data Viewer/Editor: Daily Rain vs Raw Rain  (Read 3205 times)

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Data Viewer/Editor: Daily Rain vs Raw Rain
« on: March 05, 2013, 10:59:26 AM »
Hi,

Im looking at the Data Viewer/Editor and note two columns... "Daily Rain" and "Raw Rain". The values in each column/row always match. Why?

Obviously Daily Rain is cumulative but i would've thought that Raw Rain wasn't, that it would be the amount of rain for the period of that record, which is what I am actually trying to find for export. I note that in the weather link software when you browse or export data there is a "rain" column which shows the amount of rain that fell between the previous record and the current one. Each figure is independent of each other (is not cumulative or includes the previous). If exported into a spreadsheet all of these individual rain amounts, when added, form the total rainfall for the exported time period. This is not the case for data exported from WC. Each column is cumulative for the period, meaning that a sum function on that column far exceeds the rainfall for that time.

Can someone explain why Daily Rain and Raw Rain are the same, and if I can export rain data that is independent and non-cumulative? (if this is not clear I can post some examples/screen shots etc)

Adam

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Re: Data Viewer/Editor: Daily Rain vs Raw Rain
« Reply #1 on: March 08, 2013, 05:19:28 PM »
The raw rain field is hardware dependent - it's either the total rain count from the station or the daily rain - in the case of a Vantage it's the daily rain, so it'll always reset to 0 at midnight (assuming the clock on the hardware is correct).

This should really be changed on export so as to be consistent across all station types - we can either export the differences between records (for example if you're exporting every 5 minutes, the rain would be 5 minute total for that period) or the running total from the start of the export.

What would people prefer?

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Missing Raw Rain? (Re: Data Viewer/Editor: Daily Rain vs Raw Rain)
« Reply #2 on: March 08, 2013, 07:36:20 PM »
Hi Adam, Stu, and WeatherCat fans,

Im looking at the Data Viewer/Editor and note two columns... "Daily Rain" and "Raw Rain". The values in each column/row always match. Why?

Sorry, I might be the one missing something but I sure don't see a Raw Rain field on my setup.  I have a Davis Vantage Pro but don't have the IP Data Logger.  Is that a field that only shows up with that particular logger?

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

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Re: Data Viewer/Editor: Daily Rain vs Raw Rain
« Reply #3 on: March 08, 2013, 08:08:58 PM »
I would MUCH prefer exporting the difference between records and not a cumulative daily rain (much like it does in the daily report email). This way when you export all records for a period (let's say a month) you can just do a sum function on all rain values in a column to get total rainfall for that month.  This allows closer analysis of rainfall for more specific time blocks. The other, cumulative data, is easily found elsewhere.

I actually provide rainfall data files to the hydrologists at my local govt council/county. They use this combined with other stations to develop better flood maps and flood data. This is then used for better development of mitigation  infrastructure etc. Every month I send them a spreadsheet with every single record for the month.... thousands and thousands of rows. The rainfall column is not cumulative or dependant on the previous cell. It shows, as you mention, the "difference" or rainfall between records. They then use this data to calculate rainfall and rain rate for given periods..... minutes, 10s of minutes, hours etc. Usuing river and creek height data for the same time allows them to get very specific data about rainfall-to-flood scenarios etc.

If we are limited to one I would prefer difference between records, not cumulative. Couldn't we have both columns though? :)