But it could be serious.

I've just downloaded the latest data from the weather station, and sat here
looking at the graphs. First thing that came to mind was "Wtf did that come
from?" At 6 o'clock yesterday morning, 0.6mm of rain was recorded, yet when
I came to water the plants this evening, the water butt was all but empty.
That water butt will fill easily with less than a millimetre of rain
(catches four roofs = 100+ sq m), so obviously no rain fell.

Since I keep a wildlife friendly garden, and assuming some pesky bird
(probably a pigeon) landed on the sensor and rattled it, how do you prevent
that sort of thing happening. I certainly can't blame the dog for this one.

Come on folks, one of you must some idea on this one.

jim, Northampton

On 2010-05-23 03:42:47 +0100, "jbm" said:

But it could be serious.

I've just downloaded the latest data from the weather station, and sat here
looking at the graphs. First thing that came to mind was "Wtf did that come
from?" At 6 o'clock yesterday morning, 0.6mm of rain was recorded, yet when
I came to water the plants this evening, the water butt was all but empty.
That water butt will fill easily with less than a millimetre of rain
(catches four roofs = 100+ sq m), so obviously no rain fell.

Since I keep a wildlife friendly garden, and assuming some pesky bird
(probably a pigeon) landed on the sensor and rattled it, how do you prevent
that sort of thing happening. I certainly can't blame the dog for this one.

Come on folks, one of you must some idea on this one.


My rain gauge was periodically disrupted by a robin sitting on the edge
and letting go.

I suppose you could erect a wire cage around it, but is it really worth
the effort? I suppose AWS across the country must be prone to and
therefor the rainfall consequently inflated by this sort of thing.

Trevor
www.trevorharley.com

On 23/05/10 09:11, Trevor Harley wrote:
On 2010-05-23 03:42:47 +0100, "jbm" said:

But it could be serious.

I've just downloaded the latest data from the weather station, and sat
here
looking at the graphs. First thing that came to mind was "Wtf did that
come
from?" At 6 o'clock yesterday morning, 0.6mm of rain was recorded, yet
when
I came to water the plants this evening, the water butt was all but
empty.
That water butt will fill easily with less than a millimetre of rain
(catches four roofs = 100+ sq m), so obviously no rain fell.

Since I keep a wildlife friendly garden, and assuming some pesky bird
(probably a pigeon) landed on the sensor and rattled it, how do you
prevent
that sort of thing happening. I certainly can't blame the dog for this
one.

Come on folks, one of you must some idea on this one.


My rain gauge was periodically disrupted by a robin sitting on the edge
and letting go.

I suppose you could erect a wire cage around it, but is it really worth
the effort? I suppose AWS across the country must be prone to and
therefor the rainfall consequently inflated by this sort of thing.

They say that prevention is better than cure, but in this case I agree
with Trevor. I expect your AWS has a way of correcting readings, so you
can archive a proper value for the rainfall. You can check the AWS
reading for rainfall by running a raingauge using a funnel/bottle
arrangement and working out the value from the diameter of the funnel.

A worse aberration of the AWS is one that happens every so often when
you get a sudden downpour that overwhelms the AWS. This happened
recently to me when we had a deluge of several mm in 20 minutes. The AWS
registered zero! When I went to look at it, I found the tipping bucket
was horizontal, and the first input from the storm had stopped it
tipping more than halfway. This of course is easy to correct using your
finger on the tipping bucket, if you know what the rainfall really was!

Have a look at my website (in my sigfile) to see the comparison I've
been running between the AWS and a standard gauge for over a year now.

Hugh

--

Hugh Newbury

www.evershot-weather.org

"jbm" wrote in message
...
But it could be serious.

I've just downloaded the latest data from the weather station, and sat
here looking at the graphs. First thing that came to mind was "Wtf did
that come from?" At 6 o'clock yesterday morning, 0.6mm of rain was
recorded, yet when I came to water the plants this evening, the water butt
was all but empty. That water butt will fill easily with less than a
millimetre of rain (catches four roofs = 100+ sq m), so obviously no rain
fell.

Since I keep a wildlife friendly garden, and assuming some pesky bird
(probably a pigeon) landed on the sensor and rattled it, how do you
prevent that sort of thing happening. I certainly can't blame the dog for
this one.

Come on folks, one of you must some idea on this one.

jim, Northampton



I've seen people experiment with plastic cable ties to deter airborne
intruders. Select the appropriate size and fix say 4 of them pointing
upwards around the top of the gauge. Hopefully not large enough to affect
your readings, strong enough to resist those Northamptonshire winds and more
than enough to deter avian landings.


--
George in Epping, West Essex (107m asl)
www.eppingweather.co.uk
www.winter1947.co.uk
COL 36055

"Hugh Newbury" wrote in message
...

They say that prevention is better than cure, but in this case I agree
with Trevor. I expect your AWS has a way of correcting readings, so you
can archive a proper value for the rainfall. You can check the AWS reading
for rainfall by running a raingauge using a funnel/bottle arrangement and
working out the value from the diameter of the funnel.

A worse aberration of the AWS is one that happens every so often when you
get a sudden downpour that overwhelms the AWS. This happened recently to
me when we had a deluge of several mm in 20 minutes. The AWS registered
zero! When I went to look at it, I found the tipping bucket was
horizontal, and the first input from the storm had stopped it tipping more
than halfway. This of course is easy to correct using your finger on the
tipping bucket, if you know what the rainfall really was!

Have a look at my website (in my sigfile) to see the comparison I've been
running between the AWS and a standard gauge for over a year now.

Hugh


I'm running two software packages for this. The Cumulus Tool Box refuses to
start correctly on this computer, for what reason I have no idea. And I
tried editing the files from Easy Weather once, with disastrous results, so
am a bit disinclined to try it again. I'm not really too fussed at the
moment anyway, since I am probably going to dump all the records to date
when I reposition everything, due to some weird and wonderful high
temperature readings I've been getting recently. Like today, a high of
+38.6C!!! (See the 'Techy Question' thread about that.)

jim, Northampton

"George Booth" wrote in message
...


I've seen people experiment with plastic cable ties to deter airborne
intruders. Select the appropriate size and fix say 4 of them pointing
upwards around the top of the gauge. Hopefully not large enough to affect
your readings, strong enough to resist those Northamptonshire winds and
more than enough to deter avian landings.



Ah, now that is clever. I had thought about taping some 6" nails around it,
poking upwards like your cable ties. Yours sounds a lot neater and easier.
Plenty of ties in the tool box.

The only unwelcome winds we've had here in Northamptonshire over the last 13
years came out of the mouth of our local MP, but we got rid of her a couple
of weeks ago.

jim, Northampton

On 2010-05-23 10:45:28 +0100, Hugh Newbury said:

A worse aberration of the AWS is one that happens every so often when
you get a sudden downpour that overwhelms the AWS. This happened
recently to me when we had a deluge of several mm in 20 minutes.

I've found in general that although prone to evaporation a cheap garden
centre funnel gauge gives a more accurate reading than my Davis tipping
bucket when the rate is anthing more than light rain. So I welcome the
occasional bird-assisted inflation.

Trevor