Probe for Windows Help: Forecast Rain and ET

Probe For Windows can use forecast rain and evapotranspiration (ET) when calculating required irrigation, both for the next irrigation and also for the whole season

The total amount of predicted rain in the next 7 days can be calculated for each site, and the value is left in variable %ForecastRain%.
This could be used in an email...
%ForecastRain% mm is predicted in the next %dripdays% days

Or output on a graph report (.gpt), or a text report (.rpt), or on the screen screen (.spt)

The predicted rainfalls will also be shown on the time graph if GraphMenu/Options/Local tab: Time Graph Plot delivered rain: (graph style='Rain/Predicted' [ID=80])
Predicted effective rainfalls (over FULL = runoff) will only be plotted if they are different from the forecast amount (graph style='Rain/Predicted/Effective' [ID=79])

Forecast ET will be used if schedule on ReadingsMenu/Predictions with Forecast. The ET daily value will be shown as teh Schedule DWUhere:

The value of ET will be sjown on teh grah if ???d

Each Region has three Rainfall Scenario's.

A Rainfall Scenario can be either...

  1. Historical - a weather file (that includes rain), with actual dd/mm/yyyy dates
  2. Generic - a file for various weather eg 'High', 'Low', 'Average', with dates dd mmm (no year)
  3. Forecast - a file that includes forecast rain amounts with actual dd/mm/yyyy dates

Each site is allocated to a Region, and the region has Rainfall Scenario's - see ReadingsMenu/Scheduling tab: Options
Each grower can also be allocated to a region - see FarmMenu/Edit tab: General
Users will be asked if they want to set all sites for the grower to the same region

ProbeMenu/Rainfalls


tab: Regions



tab: Rainfalls



tab: Values



tab: Download

The rainfall files are read from the shared\ folder (eg: shared\examplehigh.ran)
These files can also be downloaded from a web site

Method:

download file for this scenario

Irrimax download requires the start date of the forecast, and a key (supplied by Sentek)

download files for all scenario's

At startup - download all active files at Start-Up



tab: files


Name and location of files that contains the list of Regions and then list of Rainfall Scenarios
Defaults: shared\regions.txt, shared\rainfall.txt

'3.1.211
' attempt to append downloaded data to existing file - abandoned
' file re-downloaded if file date is different
' option download from Now-2 days note: saved in INI, not forecast file
' CalculateTotal - ET - use fractional days
'  append text to %Forecast% [5 days]