TRANSFER RECORD FORMAT DAILY RAINFALL - ONE MONTH PER RECORD Total record length is 439 bytes. General Notes a. All data available in the computer archive are provided, however, very few sites have a completely uninterrupted historical record. Gaps in the data could be caused by many factors including illness of the observer or communications failure in an electronic rain gauge, for example. A site also may have been closed, opened, reopened, or moved, thus causing breaks in the record continuity. b. You may notice that there are missing site numbers in the sequence of files. This will indicate either that the site has not recorded daily rainfall or that the number has yet to be allocated to a rainfall site. c. You may also notice that a small number of sites have little or no data. This will generally relate to a site with a very short period of record where the data has not been input into the national database as yet. All data that was available at the time of compiling this CD was included. d. Quality control for any element usually occurs once the manuscript records have been received and processed, which is usually 6-12 weeks after the end of each month. Thus quality controlled data will not normally be available immediately in 'real time'. e. Quality control is an ongoing process and changes are made to the daily rainfall database if errors are encountered. Also, not all historical daily rainfall data has been entered into the database. This mainly applies to data from the late 19th and early 20th century period, however, this data should be incorporated in the future. Thus it must be remembered that the daily rainfall database is continually changing and the latest version of this CD-ROM is essential to keep up with these changes. Format for data records (record code 001 in bytes 4-6) Byte Byte Description Units/Values pos'n length 1-2 2 Identifying code dr 4-6 3 Record code. 001 means the record gives data details 001 such as latitude and longitude 8-13 6 Bureau of Meteorology station number 000000-599999 15-18 4 Year eg. 2000 20-21 2 Month 1-12 23 1 Observation quality control flag see Note 2. 0, 1, 2 or 3 25 1 Automatic weather station 0 = no, 1 = yes 27-32 6 Monthly precipitation total mm to 0.1, or null 34-35 2 Monthly count of raindays 0-31, or null 37-42 6 Precipitation for day 01 mm to 0.1, or null 44-45 2 Days of accumulation for day 01. See Note 3. 0-31, or null 47-48 2 Precipitation type for day 01. See Note 4. 1-6, or null 50-55 6 Precipitation for day 02 mm to 0.1, or null 57-58 2 Days of accumulation for day 02. See Note 3. 0-31, or null 60-61 2 Precipitation type for day 02. See Note 4. 1-6, or null ... 63-425 325 Data for days 03 - 30 (depending on the month of the year) -- ... 427-432 6 Precipitation for day 31 mm to 0.1, or null 434-435 2 Days of accumulation for day 31. See Note 3. 0-31, or null 437-438 2 Precipitation type for day 31. See Note 4. 1-6, or null 439 1 Indicates the end of the record # Note 2. Observation quality flag The flag gives the quality control status for the whole observation. The fact that quality control has been done on the month's record does not imply that every rainfall observation in that record is 'correct', but only that it is the best value available. Element quality flags which would give the quality of each day's figure could not be included in this report. If this extra information is required, it must be provided in the form of one day per record, rather than one month per record as given here. Code Meaning 0 Quality control has been done 1 Quality control has not been done and data received via Synop message. 2 Quality control has not been done and data received via MDF message from EFB. 3 Quality control has not been done and data received via Hyrep message. 4 Ouality control has not been done and data received via AIFS from a TBRG. 5 Ouality control has not been done and data received via key entry from F68. Note 3. Accumulated falls Daily rainfall is reported at 9am usually for the previous 24 hours, however many observations are accumulated over several days, often for example over a weekend. In other words the rainfall total reported on a Monday morning may be the total since the previous Friday morning, rather than the last 24 hours. Where this happens, the 'days of accumulation' gives the number of days over which the precipitation was accumulated. Sometimes the observer, while not reading the rainfall every morning, is still able to indicate on how many days rain actually did fall. For example the rain may be measured over 4 days, but the observer may report that rain only fell on 2 of those 4 days. Where this is known, it is given by the number of days of rain within the days of accumulation. Note 4. Precipitation Type Code Meaning 1 RAIN 2 FOG 3 FROST 4 DEW 5 trace 6 SNOW 7 other Sample output: Record measurement line - _________|10_______|20_______|30_______|40_______|50_______|60_______|70_______|80_______|90_______|100______|110______|120______|130______|140 ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... # 12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123 ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... # dr 001 003003 2000 2 0 0 380.0 16 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 39.8 1 1 0.2 1 1 0.0 9.2 1 1 0.0 31.2 1 1 76.0 1 1 24.0 1 1 0.0 0.4 1 1 0.0 0.0 17.4 1 1 66.4 1 1 29.4 1 1 24.0 1 1 3.6 1 1 16.4 1 1 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.8 1 1 13.4 1 1 0.0 26.8 1 1 # dr 001 003003 2000 3 0 0 493.4 24 5.6 1 1 1.6 1 1 37.8 1 1 16.0 1 1 82.6 1 1 75.2 1 1 17.6 1 1 21.6 1 1 21.8 1 1 1.0 1 1 15.6 1 1 0.4 1 1 3.0 1 1 1.6 1 1 28.0 1 1 22.4 1 1 32.8 1 1 29.0 1 1 0.6 1 1 13.0 1 1 2.6 1 1 28.0 1 1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.4 1 1 0.0 35.2 1 1 0.0 0.0 0.0 # dr 001 003003 2000 4 0 0 247.4 8 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.4 1 1 0.0 0.0 17.2 1 1 0.0 8.6 1 1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 35.6 1 1 0.0 0.0 2.2 1 1 6.8 1 1 12.8 1 1 163.8 1 1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 # dr 001 003003 2000 5 0 0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 # dr 001 003003 2000 6 0 0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 # dr 001 003003 2000 7 1 0 0.0 0.0