Daily Rain Anomaly

[The Grand Poohbah]

This morning, the Daily Rain recorded since midnight was 27.71 inches. There was no actual rain that fell. However, we did get wind gusts up to 12 mph. An anomaly like this has never occurred before. Fortunately, I can correct the reading with the Daily Rain Editor tomorrow.

Any thoughts on what caused this Daily Rain anomaly?

WeatherCat Version 3.31 Build 8 (3.1.1)
macOS Sequoia 15.1.1
Mac mini M1

[elagache]

Dear Grand and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

This morning, the Daily Rain recorded since midnight was 27.71 inches. There was no actual rain that fell. However, we did get wind gusts up to 12 mph. An anomaly like this has never occurred before. Fortunately, I can correct the reading with the Daily Rain Editor tomorrow.

Any thoughts on what caused this Daily Rain anomaly?

Unfortunately, I don't have any obvious suggestions.  However, I got a "gust" of 109 mph during the period we got a lot of rain in December.  I have a splice for the anemometer cable and I'm reasonably sure some water got into that splice because putting it out in the sun has prevented any additional weirdness.  I hope to repair the splice during our current dry-spell.

It is a long-shot, but is there any evident of cable damage on your station?

Let us know what you discover, so we can scratch our heads further if need be.

Edouard

[The Grand Poohbah]

I tracked "The Daily Rain Anomaly" and got the following false Daily Rain readings:

Tuesday, January 7 - False Daily Rain of 27.71 inches
Wednesday, January 8 - False Daily Rain of 107.78 inches
Thursday, January 9 - False Daily Rain of 132.48 inches

I did notice that the rain rate during these 3 days varied considerably. At one point on the 9th it reported 14.40 inches per hour. It was not raining and has not rained since January 3.

And then the Daily Rain stopped giving false readings. There was no significant change in the weather on these 3 days except for some slightly-higher-than-normal wind readings on January 7. It was cold and dry the entire time. And still is.

All is quiet again. Yet another mysterious phenomenon for us to ponder.

[elagache]

Dear Grand and WeatherCat station caregivers,

I tracked "The Daily Rain Anomaly" and got the following false Daily Rain readings:

Tuesday, January 7 - False Daily Rain of 27.71 inches
Wednesday, January 8 - False Daily Rain of 107.78 inches
Thursday, January 9 - False Daily Rain of 132.48 inches

I did notice that the rain rate during these 3 days varied considerably. At one point on the 9th it reported 14.40 inches per hour. It was not raining and has not rained since January 3.

And then the Daily Rain stopped giving false readings. There was no significant change in the weather on these 3 days except for some slightly-higher-than-normal wind readings on January 7. It was cold and dry the entire time. And still is.

All is quiet again. Yet another mysterious phenomenon for us to ponder.

Indeed, you are observing some strange data readings.  Does your console report the same thing?

The only way I know of to generate errand rainfall rates is a partially plugged rain gauge.  If the gauge is plugged and the obstruction gives way, then you can get apparently very large rainfall rates.  I had an obstruction in my gauge that produced rates of the sort you describe, but it only happened once when the obstruction gave way.

If you can look inside at your gauge, it wouldn't hurt to see if there is some sort of blockage.  However, beyond that all I can say is the results you are seeing are mysterious indeed.

Edouard

[The Grand Poohbah]

The Vantage Pro 2 console was reporting the same data.

I did inspect the innards of the rain collector on one of the false rain days and it was clear.

We'll see if this ever happens again. Perhaps it is a forewarning of an alien invasion. The aliens send out signals to their spies on earth and the weather station receives them. A machine-language analysis of the false data may reveal their secrets. Enough of this wild speculation. I am going to return to earth-wise things and count my true-data rain readings.

[Blicj11]

We'll see if this ever happens again. Perhaps it is a forewarning of an alien invasion. The aliens send out signals to their spies on earth and the weather station receives them. A machine-language analysis of the false data may reveal their secrets.

Hahahahaha. I think you are on to something. Another option, inspired by me watching Interstellar again just last night, is that the anomaly could be you from the future trying to tell you in this timeline something that might save humanity. Keep us in the loop.