Guess WHO won today's
Weather "Dunce" Award(*)?
The
SETUP -- It rained slowly but steadily yesterday evening and this morning and my station dutifully registered 0.01-inch amounts at roughly hourly intervals...0.08-inches for yesterday and 0.13-inches for today...for 0.21-inches total.
CLUE #1 -- The rainfall totals of ALL nearby stations were about TWICE what I showed.
CLUE #2 -- Rainfall ceased at noon, but my station was STILL registering 0.01-inch amounts at roughly hourly intervals all the way until 7:00 p.m., and the total amount was slowly, but steadily, climbing up EVEN though NO rain had occurred since noon.
CLUE #3 -- Approaching my ISS I heard a 'click' of the tipping bucket even though it'd been 7 hours since any rain fell.
CLUE #4 -- Standing on a step-stool, I look down into the rain cone and see a small LAKE of standing water!
CLUE #5 -- Some dummy "checked" the rain cone filter by just "looking" at the plastic drain filter without actually removing it to see if anything was UNDER it.
The
VERDICT -- Mesquite leaves are
tiny and easily FIT through the plastic cone filter openings to "clog" rain water passage down to the tipping bucket and lots of those tiny mesquite leaves will act like a partially-closed spigot, causing the backed-up water to slowly drip through for hours long
after the rain event occurred!
The
MORAL -- Check
UNDER the cone filter for stuff
before the rainy season starts!
Signed:
Yours Truly,
The Dummy
(*) it's like the
Darwin Award, only non-lethal (wink,wink)