Since Wednesday the 5th November 2003 there have been some minor
changes implemented to the reporting of 24 hour rainfall in the
synops. This only effects a small number of countries, as many already
report the 24 hour rainfall group, but it has made me re-think and
reassess some of my daily reportings. The following is a list of
countries that now report 24 hour rainfall (7****), that I beleive
didn't prior to the 5th November 2003.

Europe.
Netherlands, Spain (50%), Slovakia, Slovenia & Cyprus (06 hr)

Asia.
Nepal, Macao, Japan and a few within the Malaysian group (00 hr).

Australasia.
Australia (75%) &(mixed hrs), New Zealand (00 hr)

I have already modified my spreadsheets covering the Asian and
Australian reports, as this was quite a straight forward task.

However, I don't intend to change the European reports until the 1st
December 2003. The reason for this is that the 24 hour rainfall
reporting for the European locations are reported at 06 hrs, and
currently for all other locations that don't report the 24 hr rainfall
I add up the 06 + 18 hr of the actual day, not 18 & 06 hr of the next
day, so I have a 12 hour offset in rainfall times for different
countries, (18:00 to 18:00, & 06:00 to 06:00 ~ eg 60022 + 69962 =
2.6mm). This group also is fundimentally flawed, as totals above 1mm
are rounded up to the nearest whole mm.

To maintain as good a monthly data set as I can, I will move the two
12 hourly rainfalls, which I add together, to fall in line with the
same time span that the 24 hour rainfall reports. So there is a
possibilty that one of the 12 hour spans will be missed between the
30th Nov & 1st Dec, if rain has fallen. Also if any more countries
start to include the 24 hour rainfall totals I can easily and
transparently change them on my spreadsheet as and when they occur.

Another change that has affected some of the macros I run on exel for
the cleaning up exersise, is that some of the 6**** rainfall group
reporting now includes 'no rainfall' reported using '60002', so I've
had to play around to avoid displaying '0.0' rather than '-' in the
data. (Many thanks to my excel wizard :-)

I'm hoping that many more countries, the UK for one, will follow in
this change in the coming weeks. This is certainly a much improved
addition to the superb data available from the freely available
synops. Many thanks to all concerned in the business for making this
possible.

I have also added more locations and a key to territories for the
Candian locations under 'Worlwide Reports' 'Americas'.
Best regards

Keith (Southend)

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