Contact ICT International | Specification Sheet

Interpreting Rain Gauge Readings

Just before midnight, the SL5 Smart Logger collects 24-hour summary data from all sensors. This information is displayed in the download in three rows, which are labeled maximum, minimum and average. For most of the sensors, these labels are self-explanatory. However, for a Rain Gauge, the data appearing besides these labels requires further comment.

The “maximum” label for a Rain Gauge is used to report the maximum instantaneous rate of rainfall in mm/hour recorded throughout the 24-hour period. This rate of rainfall may have only been sustained for a brief time and is calculated from the minimum time period between two consecutive tips of the bucket.

The “minimum” label for a Rain Gauge is not used, and usually appears blank in the download. Ignore this log entry.

The “average” label for a Rain Gauge is used to report the total rainfall in the previous 24 hours. Please note that the rainfall reported at 00:00 hours on a particular date actually refers to the period since the last reading and midnight of the PREVIOUS day. For example, if a Rain Gauge were set to record at hourly intervals, the total recorded at midnight besides the “average” label would in fact be the total of all the hourly readings starting at 01:00 (not 00:00) on the reporting day plus the reading at 00:00 on the next day.

The rain gauge reading that is logged and displayed can be changed in the factory as detailed below
Read Sensors – logger button
Default	The Rain Gauge value displayed on the logger LCD display is the cumulative reading for the 24-hour period – midnight to midnight.
Option 1	The Rain Gauge value displayed on the logger LCD display is the cumulative reading for the 24-hour period – 09:00 to 09:00.
Option 2	The Rain Gauge value displayed on the logger LCD display is the cumulative reading accrued since the rain gauge was connected to power, up to a maximum 65,536 counts.
Logger Menu 2 – Press 2 to read the current values of the sensors
Default	The Rain Gauge value displayed on the logger LCD display is the cumulative reading for the 24-hour period – midnight to midnight.
Option 1	The Rain Gauge value displayed on the logger LCD display is the cumulative reading for the 24-hour period – 09:00 to 09:00.
Option 2	The Rain Gauge value displayed on the logger LCD display is the cumulative reading since the rain gauge was connected to power, up to a maximum 65,536 counts where the counter will overflow to 0.
Logger recorded value
Default	The Rain Gauge value logged is the cumulative reading over the scheduled log period, eg. 1 hour, 20 minutes, etc. No log entry will be recorded unless logger option E6 is set, which allows the recording of zero counts events.
Option 0	The Rain Gauge value logged is the cumulative reading since midnight.
Option 1	The Rain Gauge value logged is the cumulative reading since 09:00.
Option 2	The Rain Gauge value logged is the cumulative reading since the rain gauge was connected to power, up to a maximum 65,536 counts where the counter will overflow to 0.

Links and Brochures
Download a printer-friendly version of Interpreting Rain Gauge Readings (205K PDF)
Rain Gauges page
Tipping bucket rain-gauge page
Meteorology Instrumentation page

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