I'm a newbie on personal weather stations, and I just got an acurite system with a 5-in-1 sensor. So far, I like it (with just a couple of hours into it). The temperature, dew point, and pressure all seem to match my expectations based on comparing with, say, the weather channel, which is great. Wind speed and direction are reasonably close to my expectations, given that the wind sensor isn't precise due to constraints like the sampling time, but for my budget it's fine.
My question is on the rainfall sensor. Getting it in december in vermont meant that outside rainfall is erratic, so my ability to see results and compare with expectations is limited. However, we did get rain yesterday, and the reported amount was about "right" (given that rainfall can vary wildly, I just kind of eyeballed what I think fell to what was reported).
Oddly, however, today was very windy (gusts to 40mph) and cold, with absolutely no rainful..yet the rainfall, which was zero when I got up, was now reported as .2 inches, a non-trivial amount. This is the first time I saw this unexplainable behavior happen in the several weeks of use (in fact, if anything, I was worried that the sensor wasn't working since it didn't report any rainfall, even on some days when there was a short, light sprinkle...but its possible it truly didn't amount to anything on those days).
I didn't do a calibration (as much due to lack of time), but in this case, since it seems to be reporting non-existent rain, not sure that it would be a calibration issue anyway.
I'm wondering if my installation could be the cause - I wanted to get this up and going to start learning, so I got a 10' 2x4 and buried 3' in the ground and mounted it on top. I figured this might not be the final location for the sensor, so I wanted to do something that was reasonably inexpensive, fast and doable in very cold weather. However, in some of the gusts, I saw the 2x4 bending and such, so now i'm wondering if that could have triggered the rainfall cup into thinking it had dumped rain?
otherwise I have no idea since there certainly hasn't been any rain today.
I googled the internet in general, and this forum in particular, and didn't see any similar questions/answers, but then again being a newbie to this area I might not have chosen the right search terms to find the right answers.
Any thoughts very much appreciated, since rainfall is one of my prime reasons for wanting a weather station. thanks!
My question is on the rainfall sensor. Getting it in december in vermont meant that outside rainfall is erratic, so my ability to see results and compare with expectations is limited. However, we did get rain yesterday, and the reported amount was about "right" (given that rainfall can vary wildly, I just kind of eyeballed what I think fell to what was reported).
Oddly, however, today was very windy (gusts to 40mph) and cold, with absolutely no rainful..yet the rainfall, which was zero when I got up, was now reported as .2 inches, a non-trivial amount. This is the first time I saw this unexplainable behavior happen in the several weeks of use (in fact, if anything, I was worried that the sensor wasn't working since it didn't report any rainfall, even on some days when there was a short, light sprinkle...but its possible it truly didn't amount to anything on those days).
I didn't do a calibration (as much due to lack of time), but in this case, since it seems to be reporting non-existent rain, not sure that it would be a calibration issue anyway.
I'm wondering if my installation could be the cause - I wanted to get this up and going to start learning, so I got a 10' 2x4 and buried 3' in the ground and mounted it on top. I figured this might not be the final location for the sensor, so I wanted to do something that was reasonably inexpensive, fast and doable in very cold weather. However, in some of the gusts, I saw the 2x4 bending and such, so now i'm wondering if that could have triggered the rainfall cup into thinking it had dumped rain?
otherwise I have no idea since there certainly hasn't been any rain today.
I googled the internet in general, and this forum in particular, and didn't see any similar questions/answers, but then again being a newbie to this area I might not have chosen the right search terms to find the right answers.
Any thoughts very much appreciated, since rainfall is one of my prime reasons for wanting a weather station. thanks!