Rainfall monitoring in Grahamstown - Oregon Scientific wireless device

I miss the rainfall and temperature graphs that used to be available online from the Rhodes University weather station, so I lashed out and bought an Oregon Scientific wireless rain logger at the beginning of August. (Thanks to Chris Duncombe-Rae for planting this seed last year).

I ordered the device from Takealot.com, and it was delivered in a few days. It's quite elegant, and has adequate monitoring/display capability but it's not a data logger where you can download data to a computer. I'm retired and on a fixed income, after all... so visually checking and transcribing numbers every now and then is something I have time for.

It consists of three components (batteries included for all of them):

The temperature sensor, about a metre off the ground in an area that gets no sunshine. It's just leaning against the wall outside our kitchen door behind a rainwater tank.

The rainfall sensor, about 1.5m off the ground. Quite tricky to find a suitable place for this. Also, as with all tipping bucket devices, it registers rainfall if you bump it, for example moving or installing it.

There were pole and tree issues, so it was moved to the north side of the pole late this afternoon, close to the end of the month so that bumping it wouldn't pollute my data. It didn't register any false readings, and is much more level.

The display panel. The time/date are displayed on the bottom line, just before moving the tipping bucket around outside.

The temperature display (second from bottom) gives an instantaneous reading, with no history, which is good enough for my purposes. The rainfall displays, resolution 1mm, are more sophisticated and consist of two readings. The top one rolls over at midnight and is accumulated into the second. This accumulated number can be reset manually, and gives the capability of accumulating monthly rainfall, provided you remember to reset it at the appropriate time and day and that it's not bucketing down at midnight at the end of the month. You can't really get a sense of the rate at which rain is falling, which you'd get from a data logger that could populate a graph, but daily and monthly rainfall figures are a hell of a lot more than I have now. The 1mm resolution isn't that helpful in the case of a long light drizzle.

It also monitors the battery levels in the sensors and the wireless signal strength.

There's a limited scroll back capability for daily readings, allowing you to step back 9 days.

Anyway, I've had it running for a month, so here's the first data:

2016/08 - total of 08mm of rain, in two events of 5mm on 08/03 and 3mm on 08/24.
2016/09 - total of 09mm of rain.
2016/10 - total of 07mm of rain.
2016/11 - total of 24mm of rain
2016/12 - total of 13mm of rain
2017/01 - total of 39mm of rain
2017/02 - total of 42mm of rain
2017/03 - total of 19mm of rain
2017/04 - total of 11mm of rain - getting colder so less evaporation
2017/05 - total of 14mm of rain
2017/06 - total of 00mm of rain!- night time temps around 10degC
2017/07 - total of 03mm - night time temps dip to about 6degC
2017/08 - total of 38mm of rain - night temps about 10degC
2017/09 - total of 10mm of rain - night temps about 12-15degC
2017/10 - total of 41mm of rain - night temps about 15degC
2017/11 - total of 27mm of rain - night temps mostly above 15degC but below 20
2017/12 - estimated 15mm rain - night temps about 20degC
2018/01 - total of 64mm - night temps above 20degC. Relocated rain gauge.
2018/02 - total of 78mm - night temps just below 20degC. Relocation sorted out rain shadow.
2018/03 - total of 62mm - night temps 15 to 20degC
2018/04 - total of 15mm - night temps 12 to 17degC
2018/05 - total of 15mm - night temps 9 to 15degC
2018/06 - total of 07mm - night temps 7  to 12 degC
2018/07 - total of 11mm - night temps 10 to 12 degC
2018/08 - total of 39mm - night temps 8 to 10C
2018/09 - total of 48mm - night temps up to 15c
2018/10 - total of 30mm - night temps up to 17C
2018/11 - total of 33mm rain
2018/12 - total of 04mm rain
2019/01 - total of 26mm rain
2019/02 - total of 18mm rain
2019/03 - total of 77mm rain
2019/04 - total of 49mm
2019/05 - total of 12mm
2019/06 - total of 15mm (est)
2019/07 - total of 03mm
2019/08 - total of 0mm
2019/09 - total of 6mm
2019/10 - total of 6mm
2019/11 - total of 3mm
2019/12 - total of 6mm
2020/01 - total of 68mm
2020/02 - total of 90mm
2020/03 - total of 49mm
2020/04 - total of 30mm