I would like to see another value calculated in parallel with the existing rain rate. I know that the existing rain rate is standard, but it is not very interesting.
Instantaneous rain rate would be calculated as "size of tipping bucket"/"time between tipping bucket tips" normalized to inches/hour or mm/hour.
I think the only complicated thing about this is that you could only get data points when the tipping bucket tips, and that happens at random times. You would also have to come up with an arbitrary time out for the next bucket tip to report zero rain rate.
This number would be more interesting because it would show the rate of rainfall of short heavy downpours.
This probably would not be reported to the weather web sites because they have no place to put it, but it would be interesting to look at locally.
Request for instantanious rain rate.
Moderator: Mattk
Re: Request for instantanious rain rate.
What you suggest is what Davis rain rate is in principle about. There are two scholars to think about rain rate which is measured in mm/h.
1) Current rain intensity. This is what you suggest. Current intensity of rain (speed of rain bucket flipping is projected to a period of one hour.) This can lead to very high values when you have strong current rainfall, but projection into the future will never show what the true rainfall in an hour would be as rain intensity will mostly calm down after having reached a peak.
2) Cumulated rain of last 60 minutes. This does just report what has been happening in the last 60 minutes and does not make any predictions what will be the result if current rainfall will last for next 60 minutes. It is just looking back.
I prefer 1) as this gives a better measure for current rain intensity. But I have got asks to support both views for data reporting to weather underground, where user can select "alternative rain rate" which will report to WU according to data from last 60 mins even when using a Davis Vantage that reports according to scholar 1).
Most weather stations report rain rate as a separate data point and Meteobridge takes this. When Meteobridge would compute rain rate differently, many users will complain that Meteobridge data is not in sync with what the console says. Every deviation from console values is seen as a SW bug by many users out there.
1) Current rain intensity. This is what you suggest. Current intensity of rain (speed of rain bucket flipping is projected to a period of one hour.) This can lead to very high values when you have strong current rainfall, but projection into the future will never show what the true rainfall in an hour would be as rain intensity will mostly calm down after having reached a peak.
2) Cumulated rain of last 60 minutes. This does just report what has been happening in the last 60 minutes and does not make any predictions what will be the result if current rainfall will last for next 60 minutes. It is just looking back.
I prefer 1) as this gives a better measure for current rain intensity. But I have got asks to support both views for data reporting to weather underground, where user can select "alternative rain rate" which will report to WU according to data from last 60 mins even when using a Davis Vantage that reports according to scholar 1).
Most weather stations report rain rate as a separate data point and Meteobridge takes this. When Meteobridge would compute rain rate differently, many users will complain that Meteobridge data is not in sync with what the console says. Every deviation from console values is seen as a SW bug by many users out there.