Rain Total Custom Graph

[ELO]

I would love to see a year custom graph that would plot year to date monthly rain totals along with the average rainfall for each month from the historical data. The data is or could all be available from the history tables depending upon how much history is available. An alternative would be to allow the user to manually enter historic monthly averages.   

Rick

[Steve]

Rick,

This isn't exactly what you are looking for, but you can graph monthly totals with the custom graphs. I do that comparing monthly precipitation vs monthly ET on my soil data page: http://www.avon-weather.com/soil.html

You can also add annual rain, but as it accumulates it starts to dwarf the monthly totals.

[ELO]

Steve,

Your example is close enough; however, I can't figure out how to create that custom graph. I can select rain/day in the custom graph series dropdown menu (the only choices are rain/day and rain/hr) then select anchored data and year for the time span. That gives me a graph of daily rain year today, but I don't see anything  that will give me a cumulative monthly line similar to what you have achieved.

I'm using WeatherCat 1.14. Am I not seeing some graph options because I'm using an older Davis Weather Monitor II station? I wouldn't think that's the issue since the rain data is readily available and viewable in some of the reports, so I must be missing something! All hints appreciated..

Rick

[Mtn.Marty]

It seems to me that there ought to be a choice to select total rain, year to date, instead of just last year, for example.

[Steve]

Sorry Rick, I hadn't been on most of the day. Here's how I have the custom chart set:




And if I add Annual Rain:



I hope that helps,
Steve

[ELO]

Steve,

Thanks. That's very interesting. I do not have Monthly Rain or Annual Rain options in the Series drop down menus on my custom graphs. Here's a screenshot of what I have.

Perhaps Stu will see this thread and can help me understand what the difference is. I'm guessing it's the weather station model but don't understand why that should make a difference.

Rick

[Steve]

Rick,

Yep, big difference in the choices! Some might be station make/model dependent, such as soil temp, etc. But I can't see why monthly/annual rain would be.

[ELO]

Agreed. I'm sure many of the differences are station dependent, and some stations may have a separate monthly & annual rain channel; however, as you noted, I don't see why monthly and annual rain aren't available for graphing with my old Davis Weather Monitor II since I have the rain gauge and both monthly and annual totals are displayed in the Year over Year stats, and with other tags.

Waiting now on comment from Stu. If he misses this thread, I'll send it to the support address or Stu directly.

Thanks for your help.
Rick

[WCDev]

Correct, Vantages output daily, monthly and annual rain as well as other goodies such as E.T.- these are recorded and are available to custom graphs. As you've noted other stations would need this data calculated, which we currently don't do.

Hope this helps explain 

[ELO]

Stu,

That's what I figured finally. Please consider this a custom graph feature request for those of us with older station hardware. WC will plot a daily rain year to day graph and does calculate the needed monthly and season/annual data for use in tags, so hopefully it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to use that calculated data (or calculation engine) to plot a monthly year to date custom graph. It's a key missing piece for year to date graphical summaries.

Thanks for your consideration.

Regards,
Rick

[WCDev]

Added to the feature request list Rick, thanks for the suggestion!