I was told by a reader about a loss of ~18mm rain recorded at Montague Island Lighthouse 69017 (NSW south coast near Narooma) on 6/7th April 2013. I checked this out and sure enough the 30 minute data shows 20.6mm at 2.30am on the 7th which at 3am is reset to 2.2mm – so 18.4mm of rain was lost in what must have been an electrical/electronic fault. I kept the www page of 30 minute data.
I sent the following fax to BoM Sydney on 9 May 2013 and never got a reply.
[MONTAGUE ISLAND LIGHTHOUSE ID: 069017 Rainfall 7 April 2013
Dear Manager,
Your webpage “Latest Weather Observations for Montague Island”
www.bom.gov.au/products/IDN60801/IDN60801.94939.shtml
records around 18.8mm rain ~10.30am to 11am on Saturday 6th April.
There was another 1.6mm recorded ~9.30-10pm that evening making 20.4mm.
A further 0.2mm made the total 20.6mm around midnight.
Then at 3am on the 7th the rain total reset to 2.2mm which was the 9am total recorded.
You can check the Canberra radar archive at –
www.oscilmet.com.au
and there were rain signatures at “~10.30am to 11am on Saturday 6th April” and
“~9.30-10pm that evening”.
So perhaps your Montague Island telemetry has lost 18.4mm of rain in the signal somewhere.
All the best,]
Checking daily rain for station 069017 at Climate Data Online we see that 2.2mm is recorded for the 7th April 2013 –
What would it take to get the BoM to correct an error ?
Do something similar to the Romans when a battle was lost due to the army running away. Sack the top five executives and then sack randomly one in ten of the remaining employees. That will concentrate their minds on being competent and only looking at factual data. The minister could do it but of course will not.