I know many of you have a regular rain gauge that you use to see if your Ecowitt rain gauge is working correctly. But what if I don't have a manual rain gauge?
I know I can look at the other Ecowitt stations nearby, which is definitely interesting. But I am also interested in comparing my measurements with weather models and local professional stations. Where are these weather data accessible? Any particular website?
There is no way to reliably check your rain gauge other than using a reputable manual rain gauge.
Comparing to other nearby sites, might get you something but:
1) How do you know they are putting out reliable numbers? Let's be frank here, most people that get a weather station and slap it online, probably don't calibrate it.
2) Those sites that do report reliable information
are not at your site, things like airports, and other government/TV station etc. weather sites.
3) The variability between your site and another site , cannot be used to calibrate your rain equipment. I mean sometimes that site might report more, sometimes less, you can't build a factor to use in calibration that can be used for every rain event.
In the end, the only way to make sure yours is accurate, is to use a manual gauge in comparison, which has to be extremely near your equipment, I mean within a couple feet. Then you can use factor to calibrate your equipment. But even then, you will want to check on occasion , because your equipment will get dirty, and change values etc, which you will clean, but you should recheck at those times.
Edit: AS far as weather models, the only thing , once you get everything calibrated and accurate, that you can report, is that you received this much rain at this specific location.
