Topic: When does weather day start?

[jagman653]

I notice a footnote in the Los Angeles Times AccuWeather rainfall report says "as of 5PM." Does that mean the rain that fell between 12 midnight and 5 AM, or between 4:59PM the previous day? IOW, what is the conventional definition of a "weather day?"

[BaseLine]

What's the time period? mm in an hour, feet in a day, cups between lunch and supper?

edit: if it's for the day (not the same as 24 h), it's past 17 hours.  (another good example why AM/PM is nonsense)

[jagman653]

Reading the LA Times/AccuWeather more carefully it says "Precipitation: 24 hr period as of 5PM." So it's inches per 24 hr period that begins at 5PM.

My reason for asking is I recently installed an Ambient WS2000 and I'd like to compare my readings to what the newspaper says. I think the console shows precipitation for the 24 hr period beginning at midnight. I'll check that out.

Thx

[Notsorusty]

It's good to see someone, other than myself, still reading the daily paper.

From my days working at the paper, way back when (around 40 years ago), the first edition would go to press around 10 pm. Any daily weather report would have had to be completed well before then so as not get in the way of the regular and late breaking news. That's maybe why the 5 pm schedule. But maybe not. Today's papers are all produced electronically so maybe there is another explanation. Or maybe old habits just don't wanna be changed.

The comic strips are usually produced by the cartoonist several weeks in advance of publication.

[jagman653]

Thanks, @Notsorusty. You're probably right regarding newspaper deadlines, but it's almost certainly not the local editors that implement it. The newspaper probably uses an AccuWeather app that allows the person in charge of the weather page to specify that deadline.

[DaleReid]

Jagman:
Why worry about what some newspaper says?  Its odd time is all due to production considerations.

I know the NWS had official stations, and one also can go to the CWOPS and get many updates.

I have some stations that are monitored by the various computer programs I like and some tell the rolling 32 hour total and all reset at midnight, not 8 a.m. the way some gardeners seem to like todo it.

A day is a day.  And a local TV station I submit to wants 'storm totals' so if the rain or snow goes on for 2 or 3 days, then that's what I have to total up to submit.

Whatever trips your trigger.  And of course you have your own micro climate with your rain being far different, even if both gauges are accurate, from someone even not too far away.  In another discussion somewhere on this forum, I discussed variations in gauges meters apart, and certainly 1/2 mile apart from a friend with a load of rain gauges (his fetish).  I think the most major variation was nearly zero here and 2 inches at his place. 

[gszlag]

I notice a footnote in the Los Angeles Times AccuWeather rainfall report says "as of 5PM." Does that mean the rain that fell between 12 midnight and 5 AM, or between 4:59PM the previous day? IOW, what is the conventional definition of a "weather day?"

The definition of a "weather day" might depend where you live. For temperature and precipitation recording at automated hourly weather stations in Canada:

"the climatological day begins at the 0601 UTC observations on Day 1 and ends at the 0600 UTC observation on Day 2."

For sites that report once daily - then the calendar day is used.

For our personal weather stations, we would normally use a calendar day. However your WS-2000 console also records "rain events". which means if it starts raining well before midnight and rains continuosly for days, it records the total precipitation for the entire duration of the event.

[Notsorusty]

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[jagman653]

Jagman:
Why worry about what some newspaper says?  Its odd time is all due to production considerations.

Got it. Guess I'm so used to reading it and instinctively want to compare it.

Whatever trips your trigger.  And of course you have your own micro climate with your rain being far different, even if both gauges are accurate, from someone even not too far away.  In another discussion somewhere on this forum, I discussed variations in gauges meters apart, and certainly 1/2 mile apart from a friend with a load of rain gauges (his fetish).  I think the most major variation was nearly zero here and 2 inches at his place.

Understood. OTOH, there's another WS-2000 about 1/2 mile from mine and so far the readings are pretty close. That's comforting. If the difference was near 0 vs. 2" consistently, I'd try to figure out why. Might even get in touch with him/her and compare installation details.

Thanks for your interest.

[jagman653]

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I don't get it. I assume the ping was the sun suddenly coming up.

Was this in you paper today by strange coincidence, or did you have it filed away in case some dunce asked what a day was?

[Notsorusty]

This was in this morning’s paper. There were several comics that were weather related today but this one seemed appropriate for this discussion. Even though these comics were drawn weeks ago they sometimes seem to be very timely.

[jagman653]

I've gotten a lot of good info from this thread and have come to some conclusions. One, agreement with the newspaper is not likely to happen and not really very important. Two, there is no single definition of "weather day" that is appropriate for all people & agencies. So, I'm gonna stop beating this dead horse.

Thanks to all.

[sky_watcher]

I've gotten a lot of good info from this thread and have come to some conclusions. One, agreement with the newspaper is not likely to happen and not really very important. Two, there is no single definition of "weather day" that is appropriate for all people & agencies. So, I'm gonna stop beating this dead horse.

A wise move, since even the WMO (World Meteorological Association) doesn't give a definitive answer: - "Daily measurements of precipitation should be taken at fixed times
common to the entire network or networks of interest." (para 6.1.2 - Measurement of Precipitation)

[BaseLine]

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I know that place. It's here. We had -21C ~48 h ago and forecast shows rain in ~72 h.