Custom Graph Rain monthly total

[wurzelmac]

Don't know if this one is mentioned somewhere in this forum:
I want to build a custom graph with
   ? Series 1 <rain total> (no other series)
   ? Type <bar anchored, monthly summed up>
   ? Period <Year>
Possible? 

Cheers,
Reinhard

[elagache]

Hi Reinhard and WeatherCat fans,

Don't know if this one is mentioned somewhere in this forum:
I want to build a custom graph with
   ? Series 1 <rain total> (no other series)
   ? Type <bar anchored, monthly summed up>
   ? Period <Year>
Possible? 

Actually, I've been making graphs like this "by hand" using Excel for a few years now.  When in the past I've asked folks whether graphs like this were interesting enough for WeatherCat to automatically generate, it didn't generate much enthusiasm.  Nonetheless, with every twist of climatic instability, interest is likely to increase.

Right now in custom graphs there is a series for Annual Rainfall.  What is missing for what you want is bar anchored by month and a period of as long as a year.

Oh, for those of us who have expect the "rainfall year" to start on some other month than January, the Annual Rainfall series won't generate the graph that is expected.  When I created a test Annual Rainfall graph I got a "shocking" 22.95 inches when I was expecting 0.02".  In California, rainfall is normally plotted from July to June.  So that would be an additional complication that WeatherCat cannot cope with at the moment.

Sorry Stu for pointing out another one of those weird customs that only make sense when you live next to desert!! 

Cheers, Edouard 

[WCDev]

Yep, Edouard is correct - we'll probably get this in version 1.2, which funnily enough I created the project management project (does that make sense?) for last night so I could bang in some stuff.

[wurzelmac]

Yep, Edouard is correct - we'll probably get this in version 1.2, which funnily enough I created the project management project (does that make sense?) for last night so I could bang in some stuff.

Maybe a "simple" bar graph with only a MAX bar, similar to the "simple" bar graph with only the AVERAGE bar. For example Windgust (or Windspeed): a bar with MAX/MIN as available now will not make sense, because the MIN will always be "0".

Cheers, Reinhard

[jace]

Oh, for those of us who have expect the "rainfall year" to start on some other month than January, the Annual Rainfall series won't generate the graph that is expected.  When I created a test Annual Rainfall graph I got a "shocking" 22.95 inches when I was expecting 0.02".  In California, rainfall is normally plotted from July to June.  So that would be an additional complication that WeatherCat cannot cope with at the moment.

Sorry Stu for pointing out another one of those weird customs that only make sense when you live next to desert!! 

Cheers, Edouard

Forgive me if I'm reading this wrong, but I thought in WeatherCat Preferences Units/Misc1 you could select a month that the Rain Season begins. Similarly in the VP2 setup, it's possible to alter the rain season start time from Jan 1 to July 1.

JC

[WCDev]

Oh, for those of us who have expect the "rainfall year" to start on some other month than January, the Annual Rainfall series won't generate the graph that is expected.  When I created a test Annual Rainfall graph I got a "shocking" 22.95 inches when I was expecting 0.02".  In California, rainfall is normally plotted from July to June.  So that would be an additional complication that WeatherCat cannot cope with at the moment.

Sorry Stu for pointing out another one of those weird customs that only make sense when you live next to desert!! 

Cheers, Edouard

Forgive me if I'm reading this wrong, but I thought in WeatherCat Preferences Units/Misc1 you could select a month that the Rain Season begins. Similarly in the VP2 setup, it's possible to alter the rain season start time from Jan 1 to July 1.

JC

That's correct and is used in conjunction with the THISSEASON time specifier in STAT$ tags so as to be able to display rain data for the season. What's needed is a yearly time period for custom graphs that uses the rain season start month rather than January (along with the changes Reinhard mentioned above).

[elagache]

Howdy Stu, JC, and WeatherCat fans,

That's correct and is used in conjunction with the THISSEASON time specifier in STAT$ tags so as to be able to display rain data for the season. What's needed is a yearly time period for custom graphs that uses the rain season start month rather than January (along with the changes Reinhard mentioned above).

Yup, that's why I was a little startled when I displayed the graph since the statistics are displayed correctly otherwise.

Just to further muddy the waters a little . . . . . . . . 

Would there be any reason why someone might need both types of graphs? (graphs starting on January-1 and July-1 in my case . . . . )

The only reason I could imagine is for sharing rainfall information across regions so that using January-1 is a reasonable universal standard.

I thought I would ask just in case there was an expected clamor to have both types of graphs available.  If a user needs a January-1 graph infrequently, then one can generate that graph by temporarily changing the start of the reason season and then changing it back once the graph is made.

Still, I thought I would ask . . . . before Stu starting along one solution path only to discover that da' crowd wanted something else!

Cheers, Edouard 

P.S. I can't think of any reason why in California there would be a need for the January-1 graph . . . . but I could be wrong ya' know!! 

[Steve]

CoCoRaHS has their rain year from October 1 through September 30, but TV weather stations keep track of rain on a calendar year. I put my CoCoRaHS data in a spreadsheet, so I total each month, the calendar total, and CoCoRaHS keeps track of the rain year for me. Besides, their data  looks a lot better than I'd come up with in Excel.

My 2012 water year: http://cloud.cocorahs.org/wys/2011-2012/OH/OH-LR-10-wys-2011-2012.html
My 2012 graphs: http://cloud.cocorahs.org/wys/StationWysCharts.html?station=OH-LR-11&wateryear=2012